Spending more than 40 hours a week within an organization forces us to build stronger ties with co-workers; depending on their quality, these ties can bring great health benefits. While it is true that everyone has their character, their way of seeing and facing life; making an effort to get along with all the people who work in your office has much more benefit than you expected.
Previous studies have determined the impact of good employee relationships on issues such as satisfaction, motivation and performance in organizations, but recently it has been found that there is an equally important link to employee health and well-being.
According to a study carried out by the universities of Haifa and Tel Aviv in Israel, good relations between colleagues determine the consequences of exerting great pressure on workers in the short and medium term. As a result, being a workaholic can increase the risk factors for type II diabetes, although working in a supportive, peer-to-peer environment can reduce the danger. This, according to the department of psychology at Tel Aviv University, can result from being overweight, poor diet and lack of exercise.
The above-mentioned study was conducted on 820 adults over two decades and published in the journal Health Psychology showed that people who do not feel supported in the workplace are 2.4 times more likely to die.
According to the results of the Relationships at Work study, carried out by the LinkedIn social network, 46% of workers consider that to feel happy and productive in the working environment it is essential to maintain a good relationship with both their colleagues and their bosses. In addition, this factor is key to having a working day where motivation reigns, productivity and employees feel confident when they share their ideas or ask for an opinion from the group.
According to research from the University of Queensland in Australia, being friends with your co-workers is really beneficial to their health. In addition, the analysis found that employees who get along well with the people in your office tend to create stronger identification with the workplace, when there are similar levels of identification within a group. Working in a hostile environment will only make you feel stressed and sad, so it’s much harder to cope with everyday challenges.