Workplace Wellbeing: You get out of your network what you put into it

Building positive relations with co-workers can boost workplace wellbeing and reduce stress levels, improving communication and engagement

A US study showed that stress levels drop, communication improves, and engagement rises when people feel connected at work.

Barbara Gilleran believes in the power of connection. The 51-year-old learning and development consultant from Dublin sees building bonds with colleagues as “an investment that requires work and takes time but pays off in terms of goodwill over the long term”.

It’s not that she views networking in cold transactional terms. She doesn’t cultivate relationships to benefit from them later in her career.

It’s that she considers herself “a natural people person” who enjoys connecting with others and over time, has noticed that this trait has helped her progress.

“I help people when I can and I’ve found that it’s come back to me in ways I could never have imagined,” she says. “I got my most recent job through my network and am convinced that you get out of your network what you put in.”

Gilleran is wise to prioritise her professional relationships. A 2019 study of 10,000 workers across 131 countries found that positive relations with co-workers were the top factor influencing workplace wellbeing. A 2014 US study showed that stress levels drop, communication improves, and engagement rises when people feel connected at work, and another 2022 study linked positive working relationships with higher team morale.

Barbara Gilleran: "I help people when I can and I’ve found that it’s come back to me in ways I could never have imagined."

We can be part of many professional networks, but according to the chartered work and organisational psychologist Leisha Redmond McGrath, the relationships we have with our immediate colleagues may constitute our most important network of all.

“If they have our backs at work every day and make us feel part of a team, that enhances our experience of work,” she says. “Combine that with the fact that colleagues learn from one another in collaborative environments, support one another during times of heavy workload, and have fun together, and it’s easy to see why having a solid network can make a huge difference to people.”

Mental health benefits

Claire Gubbins, a professor of organisational behaviour and human resource management at Dublin City University, says there are more benefits to bonding with colleagues.

“It creates a sense of community and belonging, which bolsters mental health, makes us feel more engaged with work, more connected to goals, and more likely to deliver on them,” she says. 

“It helps us do our jobs better.” She also sees advantages to connecting with those outside our immediate team. “Having networks in different departments and organisations can expose us to new perspectives and ideas that can help us do our jobs more efficiently and innovatively. And making sure we are known to key decision-makers can positively impact our promotional prospects.”

Redmond McGrath says there is much to gain from building relationships with those more junior to us, too. “We can mentor them and positively influence the next generation, and they can expose us to new thoughts and trends,” she says.

So what qualities help establish these relationships? For Gubbins, it all starts with trust, which she breaks down into two parts: “Competence, which is when colleagues trust that we are able to do our job; and integrity, which is when we show consistency between our words and actions. Both are fundamental to strong work relationships.”

Reciprocity is another necessary quality in workplace relationships. “When we do something for someone, it should be noticed, and we should be able to expect them to pay it back when and if they can,” says Gubbins.

“That give and take strengthens relationships over time.”

Claire Gubbins: "When we do something for someone, it should be noticed, and we should be able to expect them to pay it back when and if they can."

Colleagues should feel a sense of psychological safety around each other, adds Redmond McGrath. “That means feeling free to speak without fear of repercussions, expecting to be listened to when they share what they think, and being able to own up to mistakes without worrying they will be held against them,” she says.

Despite everyone being busy at work, Gubbins maintains that colleagues should also show each other a certain level of care. “Making an effort to check in with people makes a difference to the quality of the relationship,” she says. “Transactional relationships, where people only come smiling when they want something, won’t last.”

Some aspects of the modern workplace make it difficult to foster close working relationships. Remote working can be a physical deterrent. Redmond McGrath lists interpersonal disruptors: “Unfairness such as people taking credit for other people’s work or getting away with not pulling their weight, heavy workloads that leave no time for connection, and bullying”.

Too much competition is detrimental too. “The more competitive the workplace, the more it can drive real or perceived divides between people and teams,” says Gubbins. “The pressure to perform can make people focus on themselves.”

Manners and respect

Gubbins says it’s up to each individual to demonstrate that they can be trusted. “We can do this by consistently delivering on our commitments and being open, honest, and transparent whenever we can’t. Relationships are two-way, and we need to be willing to give as well as take.”

Redmond McGrath believes that manners and respect are essential fundamentals. “Don’t be late for work and don’t be crabby with colleagues,” she says. “Be kind in terms of giving people the benefit of the doubt, and if someone lets you down repeatedly, name that in an unemotional, data-driven way. And engage with people. Chat over coffee and join them for lunch. Doing all of this on a day-to-day basis will grow your relationships.”

Even if we work remotely, Gubbins says we can still build networks. We just need to be intentional about it. “Make time for chitchat at the start of online meetings,” she says. “Pick up the phone to talk to colleagues rather than always sending messages. Otherwise, you risk becoming isolated.”

Organisations can also be proactive in encouraging strong workplace relations. “They can demonstrate that relationships are a core value by organising regular events to bring people together, allocating time at the start and end of meetings to allow people to catch up, and identifying and dealing with any interpersonal problems quickly and fairly,” says Redmond McGrath.

Gubbins uses the example of an organisation that had a problem with how people spoke to and about each other. “This behaviour was making people unhappy, so management worked with their teams to define what was acceptable behaviour and what wasn’t,” she says. 

Leisha Redmond: “Be kind in terms of giving people the benefit of the doubt, and if someone lets you down repeatedly, name that in an unemotional, data-driven way."

“They printed this agreement and posted it on the walls of the office, and staff were provided with training to call out bad behaviour when they saw it. Relationships in that workplace improved as a result.”

Gilleran has had a varied career and has maintained her connections even as she moved into new roles and organisations. Gubbins believes we should all follow her example.

She acknowledges that we may not have time to correspond with former colleagues regularly, but advises “making an effort to stay in some sort of touch with those we had good relationships with. We simply never know when that relationship might be important to us again. Our networks are like spider webs. The bigger and more wide-ranging they are, the more likely they are to bring us opportunities.”

There are many ways in which we can maintain those networks.

As well as turning up as our most professional and respectful selves for our colleagues every day, we can also connect on social networks like LinkedIn and attend industry events.

“I do things like sharing resources with people online or putting them in touch with others who might be helpful to them,” says Gilleran. “I also like, comment on, and share their achievements. Little things like this help create trust and reciprocity.”

We spend hours of our days and decades of our lives at work.

It’s why Redmond McGrath’s parting words are to “prioritise our work relationships”.

“They don’t just impact our capacity to do our jobs,” she says.

“They can grow into something so strong and supportive that they are like a family.”