Relationships in the workplace can be defined as a bond or social connection between two or more people. Interpersonal relationships should not only be formed with family, friends, and classmates but with co-workers too.
Such relationships help people develop a sense of belonging, sharpen communication skills, and improve teamwork.
How do relationships affect team dynamics?
The need to maintain satisfactory and pleasurable relationships with colleagues requires a lot of effort. A work situation that alienates or even intoxicates relationships has a negative impact on the worker’s perception of the environment and decreases their satisfaction.
Some people may attribute the atmosphere as hostile or indifferent and may lose the desire that allows them to give value or meaning to their task.
A work environment with positive interpersonal relationships fosters rapprochement and cooperation. The strength of these relationships makes communication between group members more effective.
In work life, you are usually exposed to interacting with a lot of people: parents, classmates, co-workers, friends, and neighbors, which makes it important to understand how to build strong relationships in every situation.
Relationships in the workplace are especially of great importance because people spend a lot of their time at work. Eight-hour days spent working can change humans’ perspective on life. If you have nice and kind co-workers, you are lucky. If the people you are working with are arrogant and mean, maintaining a good atmosphere is not easy but possible.
How to build strong relationships in the workplace?
Building good team relationships is crucial to getting good results. For this reason, spending time from the beginning to create a trusting and humanized bond will help enormously to establish a solid foundation for a good group climate.
Various strategies promote cohesion in the workplace. These ways to foster rapport and communication with your team will lay a strong foundation:
1. Practice empathic listening
Much has been written about how to be an active listener, and it is one of the basic pillars for creating interpersonal relationships. This includes paying as much attention as possible to the person in front of you, minimizing distractions, mirroring the emotions conveyed, and demonstrating your understanding by asking questions.
But there is another way to build good understanding with your team through listening, and that is to run meetings in such a way that everyone has a voice and feels heard. Allowing everyone an uninterrupted turn to speak, at the very least, will make them feel heard and valued.
If the staff is not capable of empathizing, then they will not be able to understand and connect with each other. To strengthen the union, it is recommended to establish frequent face-to-face meetings. You can also regularly ask if you can do something that may be of use to your co-workers.
2. Appreciate the fortes of team members
All people like to feel recognized and appreciated, especially when it comes to particula skills or any special strengths. If you are faced with a difficult situation or project, your co-worker you know who is experienced in that particular area for their pieces advice and let them know that you trust their abilities.
You should never assume that people know they are recognized. Even if you think they are being praised a lot, saying a few nice words will not do any harm.
3. Promote a well-being environment in the workplace
If the team members feel that their well-being is not important or that their health is not respected, their self-esteem will drop dramatically. It will be more difficult for your co-workers to create and appreciate interpersonal relationships in their work surroundings.
Steps need to be taken to improve well-being in the workplace, such as the implementation of a certain health program or personal days off for mental health or fatigue reasons, among other measures. Even such small inconveniences as headaches or weaknesses can influence people’s ability to work.
If some of your co-workers called in sick, call them and make sure that everything is okay. If you do not know their contacts, ask people from work, find their social media accounts, or look up their contacts on Leadar, Pipl, or SignalHire. It is a nice small gesture that will show that you care.
4. Come up with different staff activities
To strengthen relationships, It is necessary to host non-work-related team activities to strengthen employee relationships. If you are working remotely or in an office, consider preparing exciting events to help grow and maintain strong team dynamics.
There are many fun activities you can have your team play. For example, companies like Escapely help host interactive virtual games such as escape rooms, murder mysteries, or trivia. Who says remote workers can’t build positive employee relationships?
Arrange a party outside of work if your employees work in-house. You could set up a night of bowling, happy hour, or miniature golf. Getting the team together after work hours is a terrific way for your workers to create bonds with one another.
Play board games, solve a puzzle, or guess countries that start with certain letters. If you are working from home, ask your colleagues if they want to meet for dinner or invite them over. There are many interesting activities.
Arrange a party outside of work and gather all team members. Even if not everyone shows up, you will have a good time with the people who came.
5. Develop shared values
Values are the often-unspoken rules by which people act. They guide your decisions and behaviors. Establishing consensual group values appreciated by the team is the foundation of solid group relationships.
When individuals agree on certain things, it effectively unites the team, providing a common bond between all members. Understanding your own personal values can be a good way to start before looking for and implementing such benefits in the workplace.
6. Ask for opinions and agree on solutions
This way of communicating has several benefits. Show interest, both personally and professionally. Adopting a questioning and guiding style will also allow others to focus more on solutions, which in turn will empower people and make them feel appreciated.
Questions can foster a culture of exploration and innovation among team members, especially if the team leader is a role model for some workers. Being a role model means that you are respected. Such people’s opinion is especially valued by most people.
7. Learn to recognize emotions in others
Although it is a frequently mentioned topic, it is important to highlight that emotional well-being is another crucial component of a good working atmosphere.
One of its aspects consists of being able to recognize emotions, both in oneself and in others. Respectfully acknowledging the emotional state of your co-workers will allow you to demonstrate empathy and modify their way of communicating to be heard.
Finally, it is important to emphasize that it is essential to take matters into your own hands. Any work climate, as long as the business culture and shared history allow it, can be changed with the dedication and activities mentioned above.
In the same way, any stable situation with a good working environment can lose its strength if the human needs for communication and bonding are neglected. Investing in a good group environment means creating solid foundations for positive organizational performance.
