Build Relationships with Colleagues – Starting Today!

3 Simple Ways

The 2015 report on employees’ job satisfaction and engagement by the Society of Human Resource Management¹ found that 44% of relationships with coworkers was “very important.” Additionally, the survey found that 79% of employees were satisfied with their relationships with their coworkers.

Certainly this is due to many reasons, including the fact that, given so much we need to accomplish in any given day, we can’t possibly do it all without the support of our coworkers. Additionally, we spend significant time with our coworkers in the office – maybe more time than with our spouses and significant others! If we don’t have a good relationship with our coworkers, it makes for a long and miserable work week.

Here are three ways to begin to build relationships with your coworkers (or strengthen the relationships you already have) – starting today!

1. Ask a few colleagues whom you would like to get to know better to meet for coffee before work, go out to lunch or have a drink after work. Talk about work, personal lives – just learn about each other.
2. Ask a few colleagues with whom you work closely now on projects. Get together and talk about how you might improve how you collaborate to get work done. This may focus on improving processes, setting up regular meetings to “check in” on projects you are all contributing to or to talk about how to better juggle limited resources.
3. Reach out to colleagues in other departments or functional areas. Invite them to lunch or meet for coffee. Focus on how might you work more closely on projects that impact across the organization? How can you support each other?

 Setting aside time each week to focus on building relationships, and sustaining relationships, with coworkers enables for a more productive and collaborative work environment overall.

^{1. http://www.shrm.org/research/surveyfindings/pages/job-satisfaction-and-engagement-report-optimizing-organizational-culture-for-success.aspx}