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As a business owner or manager, knowing what makes your people unhappy with their working relationships and ways to improve them is vital. When the relationships of your people with their co-workers – from leaders, managers, and colleagues to direct reports – are good, it will positively impact their growth and overall well-being.
If your HR team is preparing a roadmap to help employees build rapport, here are five ways they can do it.
1. Understand the GAAFFE Triggers
The GAAFFE triggers can help in understanding what causes positive or negative rapport. The alphabets in GAFFEE stand respectively for
- Goals: Do the employees and their leaders understand each other’s goals? Are they aligned?
- Autonomy-Control: Is there the desired level of freedom and direction for both parties to handle their work well?
- Attention-Inattention: Are both parties on the same page regarding the level of independence or attention/collaboration they want to handle their work well?
- Face: Do the parties support each other’s/everyone’s need for inclusion and respect?
- Fairness: Is there fair treatment for the parties/everyone?
- Ethicality: Are both parties acting with integrity and promoting ethical behaviour?
Let’s assume employee A is a bright performer shouldering increasing responsibilities at work successfully and expects to get a promotion. But A’s boss B feels he’s too young for a promotion unless he has put in 4 more years working in his existing role.
This makes A harbour a negative reaction to B and his company, and he starts looking for another job. However, B is unaware of how his decision has created a negative impact on A.
If B had been considerate of A’s deserved promotion or A clearly mentioned why B’s decision hurt his morale and career goals despite doing more than what his present role requires, a middle ground could have been found, thus neutralising A’s negative reaction.
2. Probe Employee Experiences, Behaviours, and Working Relationships
Though the GAAFFE triggers influence people’s perceptions of positive working relationships consistently, individual experiences, behaviours, and priorities may vary. For instance, what’s particularly upsetting or annoying for an individual may not have a similar effect on another.
Contextual factors too can play a significant role. This indicates behaviours and experiences are likely to vary from individual to individual and even from one department or branch to another. Even within the same environment, two individuals can have different experiences due to their different interpersonal ‘chemistry’ or personal differences.
Thus, relying heavily on the mean or summary scores or focusing just on the overall ratings could easily conceal some fundamental issues of concern. For instance, when just 10% of employees have a negative experience while the rest 90% have a positive experience with their managers, the overall impression is that all’s well. However, a 10% negative rating can put a significant dent in employee morale and have a considerable negative impact on the well-being of the individuals concerned.
3. Encourage Your People to Invest Time to Develop Relationships
Active listening and asking questions play a key role in building rapport. By paying full attention to the other person, instead of being busy in your own thought bubble, you become more invested in what they have to say. By encouraging your people to do this, you can help them understand each other on a deeper level and ask questions to encourage open communication.
The more time your people invest in interacting with coworkers, peers, and leaders, the more they will create an environment where people will come together to talk about their career goals, daily work needs, professional concerns, and celebrations because they will find people willing to listen.
Even when a manager schedules 15 minutes of his/her workday to catch up with people or organise team events or after-work outings, building workplace relationships organically would no longer feel like a herculean task.
4. Persuade Your Employees to Offer and Seek Assistance
Encouraging employees to offer and ask for assistance is a great way to build and strengthen workplace relationships. When an individual helps a coworker, who’s struggling with a project, by investing a few extra minutes of his/her time, or asks for assistance, it can help build a rapport.
Since most relationships primarily involve both give and take, employees who offer help to others when they need it the most are the ones likely to get help when they ask for it. When coworkers help each other or collaborate on work tasks, they get opportunities to know each other better and develop trust. This, in turn, can help build workplace rapport.
It’s important to remember that there’s no overnight magic formula to build rapport. It takes time, effort, and patience to do it right.
5. Appreciate Each Employee
Appreciation is a potent rapport builder. It could be as simple as recognizing the time and effort an employee puts into something, praising one for completing a job well, or thanking someone for sharing their insights. Small acts of appreciation can help build rapport and an excellent foundation for a productive work environment.
When business leaders or managers appreciate each employee’s role in the company, it boosts their morale and motivates them to enhance their focus, engagement, and productivity, which is a win-win for both employees and the company.
Sometimes, it could be difficult to understand what challenges employees of a specific branch or department are face and their frustrations that can trigger negative feelings. By remembering that each branch or department can have goals different from the other, you can try to find solutions to challenges rather than playing the blame game.
Final Words
Rapport is the foundation of building excellent workplace relationships because it helps unlock mutual trust, aid collaboration, and enhance communication skills. By encouraging your employees to build rapport with their coworkers, managers, team members, and direct reports, you can make the workplace an inspiring and enjoyable space for everyone.
From understanding the GAAFFE triggers and probing employee experiences, behaviours, and working relationships to appreciating each employee and encouraging people to invest time to build professional relationships in the workplace and offer and seek assistance, you can help build a great rapport at the workplace.
If you need C-level executives or other professionals, who can support your workplace rapport-building plans, connect with us at InHunt World!
This article was written by InHunt World