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What is a Healthy Workplace Atmosphere

By | Max Voevodin | SeoBrothers

Let us begin with a hot take: a healthy interpersonal work atmosphere is good for business. But here’s a simple question: what actually is healthy when it comes to work? People may experience regular work situations differently even within the same company, not to mention across different branches or corporate entities. “Friendly” is abstract. “Healthy” is abstract. It provides absolutely no information about what exactly is going on in the company’s offices. When someone claims that ‘we have a friendly/healthy work atmosphere in our company’, most of the time it doesn’t say anything about the said atmosphere.

That’s why the only way we can actually learn something is by comparing our previous and current experiences and then draw individual conclusions about different practices and local rituals. Maybe then a change comes. Maybe it does not. We don’t know what really works for the best until we try and fail and learn from our failures and successes.

Today is our turn to share the experience of what “friendly” and “healthy” means for employees here at SeoBrothers. Disclaimer: we will try to remain as objective and informative as possible but since we like working here, you can expect a certain level of bias.

Communication

A millennia-old axiom: communication is key. People do not possess telepathic powers; each and everyone of us sees the world through the prism of their own views and life lessons. Therefore, it cannot be underestimated how important communication is. But in reality, oftentimes communication is replaced with mere assumptions. The simplest example of this replacement is “I thought that they thought/knew/did this…”. Thinking for other people is a common flaw in relationships. You will find misunderstandings even between people who have been together or known each other for decades.

Never assume what another person is thinking. Even if you know a person really well, your assumption will be an educated guess at best and a total miss at worst.

Our project managers invite us to communicate with each other. We do regular monthly project meetings that tend to frequent somewhat when something really urgent or important comes in, we do weekly team meetings and we do rare one-on-one meetings with the project manager where we try to ascertain if we’re heading in the right direction and what the management can do to make the working process more comfortable and productive. Smaller teams that work together on a dedicated project can also meet on a daily basis to briefly discuss the previous day to keep everyone in the loop of what is going on. There is no wrong answer to this as long as you keep your communication on the level.

This results in employees that are on the level with what’s going on in their teams along with the overall direction of a project. Any questions and possible problems can be addressed through management. A clear communication line with colleagues is well-established.

The Line Between Friendship and Friendliness

Going into a workplace, it is important to understand the paradigm of relationships between you and your colleagues. You may be friends with some of them and friendly with others. You may be on speaking terms or on “hey dude I acknowledge your existence” nod terms. You can even barely tolerate each other. Some situations are more likely than others, but you should not have a problem as long as you are able differentiate between them and plan your communication accordingly. The first step to this is remembering that – unless you are running a business in a tight-knit group – by default your colleagues are not your friends, unless specified otherwise.

We live in a world of cults of personalities. Many people follow countless youtubers, bloggers, influencers, streamers, pop stars and movie stars that create an air of importance that whispers sweet nothings into our ears. And some people let these nothings go right into their heads. You are important. However, you being important doesn’t really mean that you or your thoughts or feelings are equally important – or even interesting – to other people.

It is paramount that you establish boundaries with your colleagues before going into any details about yourself. You will spend a lot of time with these people in confined quarters, and sooner or later an incorrect assumption about your interpersonal relationship will cause a rift.

Just to clarify: it is not wrong to be friends at the workplace. It is not wrong to share personal tidbits about your lives, your successes, achievements and failures as long as the other person is open to it. To stay within the borders you always should establish them first.

Summary

For us, a healthy interpersonal working atmosphere begins and ends with communication. We try and establish personal boundaries to follow them, and management tries to open communication channels between the team members and teams as a whole.

Read also our news about projects in Serbia https://seobrotherslv.com/news/the-launch-of-serbian-mightytips/


About SeoBrothers

SeoBrothers is a company specializing in different areas of SEO marketing. It has multiple projects employing many languages and international teams. If you want to learn more about the company, you can visit its social media at our Facebook, Twitter and Telegram.

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