Strong work friendships make for much happier employees

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

Workers have traditionally accepted a divvy-up of their day through the generations – a third spent sleeping, a third at home and a third working – until the pandemic turned that dynamic on its head.

Suddenly, working didn’t involve leaving home at all, and clearly sleeping doesn’t either – so the entire day/week/month was spent between the same four walls.

And that caused another upheaval in common practice – it removed the need for what has been termed the workplace spouse.

That’s the person you have lunch with or coffee with almost every day of the week; the person you chat through the weekend football results with as the kettle boils in the staff canteen; the colleague you head out for a quick pint with on the way home.

The reality is that – if you’re doing your job right – your most creative time of each day is spent away from home, because when you’re back in the house, you’re either tired or asleep, or sedentary at the very least.

Of course you go for walks or to the shop or the pub or out for a bite to eat, but, unless you’re one of the Walton Family, you can also have long periods where you don’t engage a whole lot with anyone around you.

The recruitment company, Jobs.ie, looked at this whole phenomenon recently, and found out what we all already knew – strong office relationships made for a productive working environment.

These, it should be emphasised, are entirely platonic because other kinds of workplace relations can encounter very choppy waters unless they stand the test of time – and you’re not involved with someone else in the first place.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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