Michelle Bakjac* outlines ways in which leaders can promote positive relationships among team members leading to improved interactions and greater productivity.
The average person spends more time at work than on any other daily activity.
So it is crucial that individuals within any organisation feel connected and supported by peers, direct reports, and leaders.
Significant contributors to workplace stress are psychosocial hazards related to the culture within an organisation.
This can be poor interpersonal relations and a lack of policies and practices related to respect for workers.
Positive social relationships among employees are how work gets done.
When we work well together productivity goes up, workplace stressors go down and mental health is positively impacted.
Thus, whether organisations — and their employees — survive or thrive largely depends on the quality of the social relationships they possess.
Psychologists have long identified the desire to feel connected to others as a basic human need.
Interpersonal relationships have a significant impact on mental health, health behaviour, physical health, and mortality risk.
Indeed, human physiological systems are highly responsive to positive social interactions.
When relationships in the workplace are characterised by cooperation, trust, and fairness, the reward centre of our brain is activated.
It encourages future interactions that promote employee trust, respect, and confidence, with employees believing the best in each other and inspiring each other.
Social interactions play an essential role in wellbeing; they can lead to knowledge and productivity spill-over from trained to untrained workers.
Employees who are satisfied with the overall quality of their workplace relationships are likely to be more attached to the organisation.
Social interaction in the workplace can have positive consequences in relation to social support.
Strong ‘within-group’ ties with co-workers provide opportunities to facilitate innovative thinking.
Social interactions in the workplace help to ensure everyone in a group is on the same page and have been found to increase self-reported positive feelings.
Repeated positive social interactions cultivate greater shared experiences and the gradual development of more trusting relationships.
The information collated through social interaction can help a team collectively improve its performance.
Creating opportunities for and fostering positive social interactions should be a paramount objective for all team members and leaders alike.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, relationships with colleagues were deemed the number one contributor to employee engagement.
Some 77 per cent of respondents listing workplace connections as a priority.
Given our ‘new normal’ with many people working from home and many more Zoom meetings, we are always just clicks away from communication.
While the internet has facilitated communication on a scale hereto unrivalled, there’s a lot to be said for traditional face-to-face interaction.
An email might be easier, but we lose the nuances of nonverbal cues and tone.
Dedicating time to specifically promoting positive social interactions can be a powerful route to ensuring the relationship-centric approach doesn’t fall by the wayside amidst organisational pressure to achieve.
Set aside time for employees to interact.
Focus on interests and experiences out of work to direct attention to shared interests to allow for employees to discover commonalities and relatedness.
Both employees and employers require meaningful relationships with others in the workplace, and this may be impeded by counterproductive workplace practices.
Organisational leaders should make attempts to minimise negative interactions between employees by proactively mediating and resolving differences early on.
They should build a culture of open communication that fosters trust and relationship building.
Creating a physical environment that nurtures positive social interactions between employees is a significant first step.
However, to promote relationships, a good team leader, supervisor, or manager should practice what they preach.
By establishing consistent patterns of behaviour that exemplify the desired culture, you can promote an emotional environment of inclusivity and positivity.
Consider what opportunities you may be able to embed into your workplace to promote relationships and overall wellbeing.
The PERMA model highlights five critical elements for mental wellbeing, which business leaders can adopt to promote a positive culture that encourages belonging.
The five elements of the PERMA model are: Positive Emotion; Engagement; Positive Relationships; Meaning, and Achievement/Accomplishment.
*Michelle Bakjac is an experienced Adelaide-based psychologist, organisational consultant, coach, speaker and facilitator and a Director of Bakjac Consulting. She can be contacted at [email protected].
This article first appeared on the Bakjac Consulting website.
