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After the pandemic, more and more companies have adopted a hybrid working model, where employees split their time between working from home and coming into the office.
Having both forms of work seems to have become the new normal. But whatever the working mode, work relationships remain important for maintaining the good health of all employees.
It’s crucial for workers to prioritize building connections with colleagues. Positive chemistry between co-workers can help to reduce stress levels, increase job satisfaction, and contribute to overall well-being.
On the other hand, workplace discord can wear down health – through stress, dissatisfaction with work, and the anxieties of unhealthy intra-colleague competition.
In this blog post, let’s look at some of the factors of workplace amity that can directly impact health.
Why have the people we work with become so important to most of us?
When the going is good, the connections we build with other people at work can boost health and well-being. But when people at work are in a state of friction with one another, the health of everyone involved can get adversely impacted.
It’s therefore important to try and improve our work atmosphere by maintaining good relations with everybody we come into contact with.
The way we mingle with our teammates at work can provide emotional support, which can help reduce tension levels and promote mental and physical well-being. Troubles at the workplace have an overall detrimental effect on the whole body-mind system. And, more importantly, if things grow worse, we may even be vulnerable to serious burnout.
At the very least, a worker under any strain needs less exacerbation of the problem caused by recurring exposure to co-workers who may be the cause of distress in the first place.
According to the American Psychological Association, “ … repeated acute stress may contribute to inflammation in the circulatory system, particularly in the coronary arteries … while chronic stress can cause anxiety, depression, digestive issues, headaches, muscle tension and pain, heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, sleep problems, weight gain, and memory and concentration impairment.”
Positive office atmospheres can contribute to reduced symptoms of worry and concern about being good at our jobs and being valued for it.
Working environments are full of targets to meet. Performance anxieties can be aplenty. Unfortunately, many of us who have nervous tensions about the quality of work we are producing may not seek help due to embarrassment or fear of peers’ and seniors’ scrutiny.
According to Health Assured, “Positive relationships can help employees deal with stress or other workplace difficulties. In the case of mental health, this is particularly important. Having people to talk to at work, formally or informally, can be a lifeline for someone suffering from performance anxiety.”
Good friendships with our colleagues can enhance sleep quality, positively impacting our mental and physical health. Sleeping well has several health benefits, including higher mental alertness and the ability to focus on details.
Sleep is a recuperation-and-repair phase that every human needs every day, in sufficient quantity, to offset accumulated mind and body wear-and-tear. Poor sleep can arise from difficult working conditions and relationships at work, and it can also contribute to worsening the work situation.
According to Elaine Houston, writing in Positive Psychology,” … well-being is enhanced through work interactions when those interactions are trusting, collaborative, and positive, and when employees feel valued and respected. Interactions lacking these characteristics were found to detract from well-being and negatively impacted sleeping …”
Good workplace reciprocities can lead to better health, including a reduced risk of chronic disease. Ailments such as obesity, cholesterol, diabetes, and hypertension – or hereditary factors – can all combine and have a multiplicative effect on the heart.
Those of us with chronic illnesses may not care to talk to our co-workers much about our health conditions. This could be due to fear that discussing health issues openly may affect others’ perceptions of our productivity – or even affect prospects of promotions at work.
Whereas, if there is healthy interactivity with colleagues, our co-workers can form a source of additional support at times when we need them – for example, when some of us may be going through high cholesterol symptoms, high blood sugar levels, high blood pressure, or the effects of obesity.
Good interactions with people who work with us can reduce the chances of substance abuse, positively impacting mental and physical health outcomes. Substance abuse can begin with mild addictions like smoking or some frequent drinking, but when it becomes more serious than that, it can even endanger the prospect of keeping the job.
Not only does the work done come out sub-standard, but frequent absenteeism from work will also alienate the office teams that feel let down by the worker who is not in a balanced state of mind. This leads to further alienation and, possibly, more substance abuse.
According to Buddy T, writing in Very Well Mind, “Research has shown that several factors can contribute to alcohol and drug misuse in the workplace. Factors that can encourage or discourage workplace substance abuse include workplace alienation”.
Positive connections with co-workers (as with other social relationships) can improve our immune systems.
Doctors have always told us that people in a happy state are likely to have a better state of immunity due to their mindsets. Conversely, being in a negative place concerning our co-workers can create a silent unhappiness that substantially impacts our immunity.
According to Carrianne J. Leschak M.A. et al., in their medical paper in Psychosomatic Medicine, “… adverse social experiences (social isolation, perceived social threat) may induce inflammatory responses while suppressing antiviral immunity, whereas positive experiences of social connection may reduce inflammation and bolster antiviral responses.”
Some writers link poor office bonding with the possibility of a stroke. This may or may not be true, as there is not enough validation yet for this theory. But as Arun Pradeep writes in LinkedIn, every working environment could surely become one of “positive strokes,” where employees respect and support one another, making the workplace ever joyful, warmly accepting, and always open-hearted. Stay heart-healthy. Be a Zinda Dil.
