How Employee’s Romantic Relationships Predict Company Performance – a DisruptHR talk by Mark Groves – Founder at www.MarkGoves.tv
DisruptHR Vancouver 1 – November 4, 2015 in Vancouver, British Columbia. #DisruptHRYVR
Our ability to be in great relationships is the greatest predictor of happiness and success in the workplace.
The challenge is, we learn our relationship skills at home – which may or may not be a good thing. The line between work and home is blurry at best.
We don’t talk about love in the workplace – but there’s a lot of love happening. One fifth of people actually meet their future partners in the workplace – and of the people that cheat, 62% meet their counterparts in the workplace. So there’s a lot of love happening, and also a lot of disconnection happening.
In one study, employees were asked if stress at work has caused an outburst with friends or family in the last month at least three or more times, and over half (51%) said “yes” – regardless of their relationship status. So work can cause disconnection at home and with friends. Studies also show that people in hostile relationships actually heal slower, so conflict at work can affect our physiology.
If people are better at relationships, will that mean that they’re better leaders and better teammates?
What effect do poor relationships have in the workplace? Culture, productivity, sales, absenteeism, and turnover are all affected (negatively).
If we can train people to be great at relationships, will that translate to the workplace?
The science shows that sought after qualities of great leaders and teammates are trust, honesty/integrity, communication, engaging, inspiring – and the sought after qualities of great relationship partners are kindness and generosity. We want these things in our workplace.
We should be talking about relationships at work. People who are in fun, great relationships, usually have them at work too. And people who are happy, are typically happy in every area of their lives. So people with great relationships can ultimately help our organizations to thrive.
