Positive workplace relationships are essential elements to a healthy organization, especially if you rely on teamwork to complete key tasks and activities. Nevertheless, this also means that you need to ensure that everyone gets along well. Regardless of whether you are a fresh employee or a CEO, getting along with your workmates is important. It should be a top priority. While teamwork is essential, not everyone possesses this skill. And this may lead to workplace anxiety and social awkwardness.
Importance of building workplace relationships
Some people find it convenient to ignore relationships in the workplace. They choose to neglect this integral issue because is easy not to care. They report to work and keep working until they go to lunch and get back to work until they go home. This routine is effective in the short term but terrible in the long run. You may say to yourself that you don’t need officemates or friendships in the workplace. Or that you have lots of great friends or you don’t really like or have nothing in common with your colleagues. However, when you think about it, you’ll realise that:
Work is tolerable and enjoyable when you have great people around.
Having two or more friends might be extremely important in and out of the workplace.
You have a lot in common with your colleagues that you think.
By trying to build healthy relationships with your workmates, you’ll benefit in the following ways:
Building trust: When you focus on building relationships with your employees, you’ll gain more trust from them. And good rapport will help you achieve astounding results.
Knowing each other: By promoting friendliness and goodwill with your colleagues, you’ll get to know more about their strengths, weaknesses and the tasks that they love working on. This will go a long way when you want to delegate tasks.
Avoiding conflicts: Workplace conflicts are usually caused by misinterpretations and misunderstandings. And these two aspects can be avoided when employees know each other properly. Keep in mind that it’s easy to build positive relationships in the workplace than undoing the damage caused by work fights.
Boosts motivation: Several research studies have shown that money doesn’t promote happiness. A good-willed and productive workplace is extremely important. When all workmates get along together, deadlines get met and workflows flourish. And this results in satisfaction.
Understanding colleagues: This is essential for managers that want to understand the emotional side of their workmates or employees. Building a positive relationship at work is essential to becoming an amazing project coordinator.
Promotes listening: Most of the time, workmates tend to be talkative. You shouldn’t think of this as something awful but as a chance to know and understand them. Everyone has specific things that they enjoy talking or complaining about. Empathy is essential here.
Talk efficiently: Those who foster excellent work relationships know when it’s time to talk or stop and listen. When you become an excellent talker, you’ll understand when to advise your workmates and when to keep quiet and listen.
Building workplace relationships
Emotional intelligence plays an integral role in work relationships in these ways:
Enhances self-awareness: Employees with strong self-awareness are not affected by constructive criticism. Instead, they use it as a mirror to improve their productivity and performance.
Self-management: Employees who have developed their self-regulation skills know how to control their thoughts and emotions. No matter what they are going through, they always stick to their principles.
Boosts motivation: Employees with high emotional intelligence are usually motivated to complete their tasks and achieve their goals. This has been proven countless times by several respected universities in the world.
Improved social skills: Those with high emotional intelligence won’t have a problem working in a team. Teamwork is not just what’s good for them but what they prefer. In general, people with high IQ get promoted faster than those who lack these essential skills.
2. Developing people skills
Focus on others: We tend to think about ourselves most of the time. You need to stop for a few seconds and focus on the people around you. Doing this will enable you to know how to deal with them.
Act on what you see: Is there something about yourself that you don’t like or you’d like to change? Asking yourself this question every single day will pay off in spades.
Change: Depending on your will and strength, you might manage to change. Keep in mind that changing your workplace relationships requires energy and work.