1. Communicate. This one would seem like a no brainer; but, I’m always amazed at the lack of communication I find in the places I have worked. Here is an example: Employee A organizes the adult programming for a library. She has scheduled movies on a certain night of the week for a few years. She logs onto the calendar to book the community room several months ahead and finds that Employee B, the person who does children’s programming has booked the same night for several months. Employee A can move the movie night to another night; but, it will require training a generally elderly population into switching nights. It will also require a rescheduling of personnel. All of this is fine in the long run; after all, staff must share the facilities. The problem exists because Employee B didn’t have the courtesy to just call up Employee A and have a discussion about booking the room and there by at least giving Employee A a heads up. Now there are feelings of irritation and suspicion instead of one of teamwork. Employee B missed an opportunity to bond with her colleague and build a relationship based on negotiation and support. Do you think Employee A will jump at the chance to help out Employee B should she need it? I doubt it. Pick up the phone or wander down to your colleague’s desk and talk them.
2. Set up your coworkers to succeed. What I mean by that is if you are presented with an opportunity to make a situation smoother or give your coworker the information they need to successfully navigate a problem, DO IT! A good example is when dealing with a customer complaint that needs to be handed off to the next person. Take a moment, whether by phone or in person, to bring your coworker up to speed in an objective way. You don’t have to bias your coworker’s opinion of the customer; but, you can give them all the facts and even suggestions for resolution if you have any. If you need to forward a customer call to another person, take a moment to introduce them to the problem before allowing the call to transfer. This is a win/win situation because not only are you building a trusting relationship with your colleague, you are also improving customer service. There is nothing more annoying than calling a customer service line and getting handed off a million times and having to tell each new person the whole story.
3. Avoid office gossip. This is hard. There is always one person in any workplace that others like to complain about. Try to avoid this kind of chit chat. Although it may feeling like a bit of coworker bonding at the moment, it is actually planting the seeds of distrust in everyone involved. If your coworkers talk about your other coworker behind their back, who’s to say they don’t talk about you when you’re not there? And there lies the rub. By not participating in these conversations, you coworkers quickly learn to curb these types of bitch fests while you are around. They also begin to realize that you are a person that can be trusted to treat others fairly. This is an excellent role to have in an organization because it puts you in a position of being able to help create a cohesive team and change a distrustful atmosphere.
4. Give when you can. There are times in every organization when you are less busy than someone else. If you see your coworker stressed from overwork and you have time, offer to help. If you have an answer needed to help a customer, offer it. In my library I’m seen as one of the techie people around here and reference staff have been known to interrupt my offdesk time to get me to help a customer with a computer question. When I was younger, this would sometimes irritate me because I felt that the other staff should know these things. But, now that I’m older and just more experienced I realize that we all have our strengths and roles. Mine is to help people with computer issues that are beyond basic troubleshoots. I’ve had coworkers whose strengths were in business resources, government documents and geneology and I was happy to pass the customer to them. That’s teamwork and when the team is working together, the customer always wins.
5. Show respect to others at all times, even when someone drives you crazy. This can sometimes be hard; but, it is really not negotiable if you want good working relationships with coworkers. Deliver criticism gently and receive it maturely. I’ve seen coworkers snap at each other, treat each other rudely and disrespect each other in a whole gamut of ways I had never thought of before. I’ve had a boss who yelled and kicked file cabinets and liked to make people cry. I’ve had a boss who never came out of her office even if the library was crazy and we needed her help. I’ve seen coworkers treat nonprofessional staff as if they were idiots. All of this behavior leads to a workplace in chaos which is always bad for the customer. And it may be a cliche; but, seriously, a little respect goes a long way.
This is a good start. I’m sure there are many other ways to build good rapport with the folks you work with day in and day out. Some of us spend as much time with our coworkers as we do with our families. We should take some care tending to these relationships.
Civil Civil Servant 