5 Ways To Connect With Your Work Colleagues

This is a guest post by Stuart Mills

America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.” – Evan Esar

A lot of people today have a lot of gadgets. They will generally have a cell phone (or mobile phone if you’re from ‘across the pond’ like me), a portable music player, a computer of some sort. The ‘tech-head amongst you might even have a MacBook, a smartphone, or an I-Pad.

However, despite all these cool gadgets that make life easier, how much time do you spend with them?

Is it a lot? That’s OK. Do you spend a lot of time with gadgets even at work, during your break-times and even when you’re sitting at your desk? That’s not OK. It’s not OK because you’re spending your free time with your toys, whereas a much better way to spend your free time is with your colleagues.

Ask yourself a question, how much do you know about your colleagues? If you’re like the majority of working people in the world, then the answer is ‘not much’. Which is a shame, because you see these people for most of your working week! They’re human beings too, with feelings, needs, desires and insecurities, just like you.

Five Ways To Connect

The benefits of connecting with your colleagues are many; you can increase your productivity, increase your fun, you can learn new skills and tips, and gain valuable networking connections. So, here are five ways that you can use to connect with your work colleagues.

1. Ask About Their Families

One thing that you have in common with your work colleagues, if nothing else, is that we all have families. We all have parents, even if they’re no longer with us, and the majority will have either children of their own, or siblings, or both. We all have families. Some families, like my own, aren’t that large, but other families are absolutely huge! My managers’ family extends across countries and includes more members than I can count, so this always gives us a topic to talk about.

If you know someone has children, ask how they are. If you know that they have brothers or sisters, ask how they are. The trick here is to express your interest in their families; what’s better is if you ask about specific family members, especially with names included.

They’ll be happy to talk, because everyone loves talking about their families. Whether their youngest is performing well at school or their sister’s recently returned from a vacation in Japan, or their mother’s been in hospital recently, there’s always something worth talking about. So give them the opportunity to talk. They’ll love you for it.

2. Discover What They Do Outside Of Work

No-one spends every waking moment working. We all need some down-time, whether we give it to ourselves or not. When you go home after work, you don’t hop into a storage box and turn off until the morning! You have a life, you do other things, you enjoy yourself as best you can. Your colleagues aren’t any different.

Find out what they do in their spare time. A simple question can start this conversation off, like “Have you got any hobbies?”, or “Do you go out in the evenings?”. Once you’ve opened the topic, find out more about what they love doing. Do they go to a social club in the evening? Do they spend time in their garden, or with their children? Do they go to the gym straight after work, or go running?

Everyone has something that they love. Find out what it is, show an interest, and they’ll willingly talk about it for as long as they can.

3. Ask If They Need Any Help

As much as it would benefit everyone if more conversations took place, sometimes going over and asking them questions about their private life may not be ideal, because they may be trying to work, and the last thing they need is someone interrupting them when they’re trying to focus.

If this is the case, then leave them alone, but ask one simple question first, “Would you like any help?”

That’s all you’ve got to ask. If they say “no”, then leave them and move on, but if they say “yes”, then ask what it is they’re doing. Find out more, what they need help with, and get involved. They’ll appreciate the time you spend going out of your way to help them, and they may return the favour one day.

4. Avoid Gossip

When I’ve walked past conversations in the workplace before, I couldn’t help but overhear what the hot topic was: “Oh my God, did you see her dress? I can’t believe she would wear that!” “I know, it doesn’t suit her at all, she looks so ridiculous”

Now I’ve heard men and women talk about this, but the point is that gossip is meaningless. Gossip doesn’t enable you to learn anything, nobody benefits from it, and time slips by before you know it. So avoid gossip. Granted, it may be an interesting topic at the time, but who are you really helping?

You’re not helping others when you talk about them behind their back. You aren’t helping your company by spending time not doing work, and you aren’t helping each other because all you’re doing is releasing hot air. And once that hot air is released, you suck it up with more negative thinking, until you’re ready to burst with gossip once again.

Gossip doesn’t help anyone. Cut it out of the workplace, and either have a conversation that adds value, or get on with the work.

5. Smile

There’s one thing you must always do, whether approaching a colleague, or when walking into your workplace, or when dealing with anyone about anything. You must smile.

Smiling brightens everyone’s day. If I saw someone smiling, I’d think they were having a good day and they were happy. And if they were smiling at me, then I’d smile back. Smiling is infectious, it catches very quickly. If you smile at someone and they smile back, then they smile at someone else and that person smiles back, before you know it you’ve got a smile-chain going on! Just think how much happier people’s days will be if they’re smiling!

When you approach someone, smile, and greet them firmly without distraction. Let them know that they’re the object of your focus. They’ll recognise this and return it in kind, maybe with a smile of their own. Smile and the world smiles with you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stuart Mills is an experienced writer who wants to help you improve at life. He thinks you’re awesome. You can often find him on his blog, where he writes constantly to make it a better day for everyone.