It's the people who make the job: grateful for colleagues

The first days of a new job are usually tough. The last days can also be tough. Ironically the thing that makes the first days better is the same thing that makes the last days difficult: good people we work with.

We all remember the first day at a new school. I was so distrusting of what lay inside the school gates that I physically limpet myself to my mum’s leg and beg her to take me home to the safety of my lego set and the adventures of button moon.

Eventually, I was placed down at a table next to a demure boy called Ben. He seemed afflicted by shyness too. After a few minutes he pulled out a Top Trumps card from the pocket of his grey shorts and placed it in front of me. This offering was game, set, and match. Ben and I became inseparable for the next academic year. School suddenly became an enjoyable vehicle to explore my creativity, pet the class guinea pig (Wilbur, you are never forgotten), and of course, swap toys we had sneaked in from home.

Fast forward about 25 years and we come to my first day working as an official doctor. If I say ‘junior’ doctor, then thanks to Adam Kay, you start to readily conjure up some of the chaos that I am about to describe. 

I had the infamous bleep in a tiny bag hanging off me. It really was the most demanding contraption. I would step onto one ward to deal with an issue and before I had finished my introduction to the staff there, the bleep would let out a high pitched cry and I’d have to apologise, pause my introduction and find the nearest ward phone to respond. This was unrelenting. There was no lunch, no toilet break but there was no time to hydrate so this mattered less so. I barely knew my way around the giant hospital.

Several hours later I decided to take literally two much needed minutes out of the shift and headed into the shoe closet that was the doctors administration room in order to…cry. 120 seconds later, with The Streets in my head singing ‘dry your eyes mate’, I re-entered the arena.

The bleep obviously went off again. I looked for the nearest phone. The voice on the other end didn’t sound like a frantic nursing colleague for once about to request my presence immediately to trawl through the 20 item task list they couldn’t wait to hand over. Instead, the voice was calming and friendly, and no demands were made of me. My senior colleague Henry had bleeped me to say hi, and to ask how I was doing. Did I need any help with anything? He would come and find me shortly to introduce himself in person, and did I want anything to eat or drink from the hospital shop as he made his way over?

That put warmth back into me. It really made my shift. 

I ended up doing many shifts with this colleague and his fraternal kindness always made things feel so much better.

We seem to remember our first days vividly, and that extends to fondly, because of people like Ben and Henry. I am always grateful to them both, and unsurprisingly gratitude plays a pivotal role in our relationships with our coworkers, as it does with all of our relationships.

Let’s consider why we want better relationships with our colleagues. Well, my examples of the first day of school and first day of work highlight how important it is for our wellbeing to have people in those environments that we feel connected to. Research from Gallup suggests that having friends at work/positive relationships with our colleagues, makes us feel a stronger connection to our organisation. It also makes us look forward to coming into work, and we embed ourselves more readily to the company’s vision, collaborating better to create success for the business. 

Conversely, a study done by Tel Aviv University found that colleagues have the biggest impact on our health. This looked at employees from various industries over a 20 year period. The researchers assumed that working longer hours would be the factor most detrimental to employees' health but this surprisingly had very little impact at all. Interestingly, they found that the factor most closely linked to poor health was lack of support from colleagues. WorkWorries.com also found that colleagues were a bigger source of stress than our bosses. 62% of participants reported that colleagues cause them more stress than bosses, while the other 38% said that their bosses cause them more stress.

In medicine, the importance of good teamwork underpinned by strong relationships with colleagues cannot be overlooked. When you are working toward a common goal, the highest of stakes being trying to save someone whose heart has just stopped, you need all members of the team to be trusting of each other and communicating to the absolute best of their abilities with one another.  

When things don’t go as planned in medicine, the feeling can be deeply upsetting. I can attest to the importance of having colleagues you are close with to lean on at these times. This is just as relevant in other professions. Deadlines, unhappy clients, an unpredictable economy, increasing workloads can all impact our wellbeing negatively and, as in our personal lives when we are facing challenges, we need a network to help us stay resilient.

Research shows that gratitude practice in the workplace can lead to better relationships with our colleagues, mainly by increasing trust. It is this increased trust that in turn leads to improved communication, and more readily leads to friendships being formed. Of course, any relationship can have ups and downs, even with colleagues. The good news again is that regular gratitude practice not only leads to us having a bigger network of people in our lives, but it also means that we are more likely to have better quality relationships. If a problem does arise, gratitude practising folks are more likely to talk through these with our colleagues - how’s that for your conflict resolution training?

Would you be shocked if I told you that research shows that the following chain exists; gratitude practice increases trust in colleagues and strengthens these relationships, this leads to us feeling more satisfied at work, and this makes it less likely for us to want to leave our jobs? Of course you wouldn’t. It all makes such total sense. This is why at every level of an organisation, employers and employees alike, need to be embracing a culture of gratitude - a win-win for all.

So how can we implement more gratitude practice at work to start seeing more of these coworking relationships flourish? Well, the CEO of Campbell’s soup has written over 30,000 letters of thanks to his employees over the years. Organisations may have broad recognition and reward schemes for employees. But more often than not, a simple verbal expression of gratitude toward each other is the key that keeps teams happy, and together. Oh and if you send any holiday greeting cards to your colleagues this year, don’t forget to include why you are grateful for them.