Contents
- In short
- Cohesion: everyone sees the problem, but where do you start?
- A practical guide, built by HR leaders for HR leaders
- Driver 1: Build a shared direction
- Driver 2: Help people get to know each other
- Driver 3: Live the values through actions
- Driver 4: Equip frontline managers
- How do you know where you stand?
- FAQ
In short
74% of employees believe that a lack of cohesion directly hurts their company's performance. Cohesion and performance go hand in hand: when the sense of belonging at work weakens, the whole team dynamic suffers. Yet most organisations are already investing in it, with offsites, team events and company values on the walls. So why isn't it enough? To put numbers on the problem, United Heroes first launched the 2026 HR Barometer. Then, to move from findings to action, we built a practical guide based on first-hand accounts from HR leaders.
Cohesion: everyone sees the problem, but where do you start?
An offsite? Training? Management rituals? Shared values? Team events? They can all help. But what really holds a team together over time?
That is the question United Heroes set out to answer with the 2026 HR Barometer, a study run with OpinionWay among 1,038 employees in France. The finding is clear: 85% of employees say their company organises team events. But nearly a third see them as a waste of time. Only 12% find them meaningful. And behind these figures, one divide keeps coming up: the gap between head office and the field, named as the strongest by 42% of respondents.
Cohesion isn't fixed with one more event. It is built on deeper foundations.
To dig deeper into the state of teams at work: the key figures of the 2026 HR Barometer (in French).
A practical guide, built by HR leaders for HR leaders
To go beyond the findings, United Heroes wanted to ask the right questions about this issue. The answer: start from the field. We listened to what HR leaders actually do, through dozens of hours of French HR podcasts (13ème mois, La Pause RH, Bande de Flippés, On n'a jamais fait comme ça, Capital Humain 3.0, L'Entreprise de Demain). We also relied on Mathilde Salobir, CHRO of United Heroes, who helped design the guide. The result is meant to be a practical tool for HR leaders who want to build cohesion in their company without starting from scratch.
This work identified 4 drivers that help build cohesion. Here is what they cover.
The data below comes from the 2026 HR Barometer, run by United Heroes with OpinionWay among 1,038 employees in France.
Driver 1: Build a shared direction
A team holds together when everyone knows where the company is going, and above all what won't change, even when everything else moves. Without a shared direction, cohesion initiatives fall flat: people take part, but they don't understand why, or how it connects to the company's plans.
Eric Spielmann, CHRO of Groupe GCC, learned the hard way what happens when you don't tell acquired teams the truth from day one. His rule today is in the guide.
Case study in the guide
How did Club Med set values that have lasted for more than 20 years? Read the story of Sylvie Brisson, CHRO of Club Med, in our Cohesion Guide.
Read the storyDriver 2: Help people get to know each other
Employees rate their sense of belonging to their team at 7.4/10, while belonging to the company peaks at 6.9/10. And 69% of employees would rather protect their team than their company. People retreat into their close circle because wider ties are missing: between roles, between sites, between generations.
At POINT.P, Emmanuel Boulineau found a way to bring together colleagues who had worked in the same company for years without ever really talking. The approach is in the guide.
Case study in the guide
Toyota, which presented its project in a webinar on cultural transformation (in French), managed to get employees who never cross paths to see themselves in the same stories.
Get the method in the guideDriver 3: Live the values through actions
When leadership is not seen as committed, 31% of employees see team events as a waste of time. When it is, that figure drops to 7%. Visible commitment from leadership completely changes how these moments are perceived.
Paul Sauveplane, Chief People Officer at Alan, made a very costly decision to prove that the company's values applied to everyone, senior profiles included. The story is in the guide.
Case study in the guide
At Lucca, CEO Gilles Satgé has 2 non-negotiable rules about the way he manages. They hold the team together better than any values charter.
Download the guide to read themDriver 4: Equip frontline managers
48% of managers say they have to work around some HR rules and improvise to rebuild ties within their team. This isn't a people problem. It's a method problem: they are given a mission without the means to carry it out.
Fanny Barbier, CHRO of Emeis, launched a call for volunteers to co-design a management school. In a single morning, 300 managers replied. What she did next is in the guide.
Case study in the guide
The guide also features Benoît Thièbe, Head of Recruitment at IKEA, on feedback culture as an everyday driver of cohesion.
Download the guide to find outHow do you know where you stand?
Before trying to strengthen team cohesion, it helps to measure where you stand. Three questions already give you a good snapshot:
- Do your employees feel closer to their team or to the company?
- Which divide is strongest in your company: head office versus the field, between sites, between roles, between generations?
- Do your managers have the tools to build ties, or are they improvising?
The 2026 HR Barometer (in French) lets you compare your situation with other French companies. The cohesion guide gives you the actions to launch once the diagnosis is done.
FAQ
What is workplace cohesion?
Cohesion is what turns a group of employees into a real team. It doesn't come from a one-off event, but from regular practices across four drivers: a shared direction, human ties that are actively built, actions that prove the values, and managers equipped to bring it all to life.
Why does cohesion matter for performance?
74% of employees believe that a lack of cohesion directly hurts their organisation's performance. This isn't leadership's assessment: it is what employees themselves see every day.
How can you strengthen team cohesion in practice?
By acting on the four drivers: clarify the shared direction, create opportunities for colleagues to get to know each other, align leadership actions with stated values, and give frontline managers the tools to nurture ties day to day. These four areas set the framework, and the guide details practices actually tested by HR leaders for each one.
How do you maintain cohesion in a hybrid or multi-site team?
Distance makes opportunities to connect less spontaneous, so they need to be organised. Shared rituals, common experiences and chances to meet across sites or roles help rebuild shared references, even when people rarely cross paths.
The 2026 HR Barometer sets out the diagnosis. The guide turns it into action. The testimonies it features come from French-language HR podcasts, so the original episodes are in French.
Download the free guide