Your Work Relationships and Your Reputation Help Tomorrow's Job Hunt

Would your colleagues recommend you for a job?

With the current pandemic pressing unemployment to record highs and leaving many of us furloughed, laid off, or just nervous, this question is particularly poignant right now.

And as much as we’d like to think that friends and former colleagues would lend a hand when we’re job hunting, there’s a big difference between someone getting your resumé in the right hands and someone feeling certain about being your champion.

 

Work Relationships Extend Beyond Today’s Work

The value of strong professional relationships is obviously critical to getting things done at work and being happy there. But those relationships may prove invaluable down the road too.

How can you build solid work relationships and a reputation that makes your current colleagues your biggest fans?

“Every day you’re choosing who you are and what you believe about yourself, and you’re setting the standards for the relationships in your life,” says author Rachel Hollis.       

There are some people who seem to build strong working relationships with ease. High in emotional intelligence, they understand that in order to have strong relationships, they must know themselves, be excellent communicators, value others’ input (even when they disagree) and be respectful and trustworthy at all times.

 

Two of our newest live, virtual seminars can help you with workplace relationships: Strengthening Your People Skills in the Workplace or Developing Your Emotional Intelligence. Register now!

 

Consider these behaviors of positive co-worker relationships:

1. Be reliable. Build trust with colleagues by keeping promises, meeting deadlines and living up to your end of the job. Habitually putting things off because you “like the pressure” of a looming deadline can affect colleagues. Instead, “think of your word as a contract,” suggests eatyourcareer.com.
2. Be a team player. While setting boundaries does help keep you from becoming overcommitted, try not to be rigid. “It’s not my job” are words you should usually avoid. If time constraints or other priorities keep you from helping out, try suggesting other solutions. Afraid the way you’re voicing valid limitations is being misunderstood? Read more about being assertive the right way.
3. Admit your mistakes and apologize. Everyone makes mistakes. Accept yours and don’t try to shift the blame or minimize the consequences. Also, don’t expect others to be perfect.
4. Respect differences. Have you ever met anyone who thinks exactly like you? Take pride in the things that make you different and recognize that those around you will likely not share your feelings, experiences or values. Don’t let these differences change how you interact.
5. Maintain a positive attitude. Everyone experiences doubt and fear. Expressing those concerns and asking valid questions is vital to any thriving workplace. But be aware of how you’re saying those things. Do your best to maintain a positive attitude. Don’t like the direction a project is going? Look for solutions and offer alternatives instead of just complaining.  
6. Listen to understand. Whether chatting in the break room or across the table in a meeting, give your colleagues your full attention. Don’t interrupt. Don’t assume you understand until you hear them out completely.
7. Communicate well. No matter your job, your ability to deliver clear information is important. It helps prevent confusion, duplicate work, misunderstandings and all the things that go along with it. Also knowing how to say things in a respectful, proactive way encourages positive feelings.
8. Respect others’ time. Those around you have deadlines, priorities and work styles that are different from yours. If you need to interrupt someone, ask if it’s a good time. If your request is urgent, apologize for interrupting and be brief.
9. Be friendly. Smile. Say good morning. Notice the people around you and interact at least a little so you get to know each other.

 

Take a closer look at your current workplace reputation and relationships. Correct any career-limiting behaviors and ways of thinking or responding. You may have unintentionally fallen into some bad habits.

And because of these things, you may have work relationships that are strained.

Sure, if you leave that job maybe those relationships don’t matter. But, with an eye to the future, every relationship matters. Build (or rebuild) your reputation. Consider where you might be falling short, change your behavior, and give colleagues plenty of evidence of the new, improved you.