We are encouraged to get up, get moving, and don’t let those sub-zero winter temperatures drag us down! Dogs need plenty of exercise throughout the year and the best way to keep them active in winter is to take them for regular walks.
But you know all that already, so what has that got to do with HR? And as someone who has never had a dog nor who aspires to own one, why would I be writing about this?
“Walking your dog” is something you can do at work, even in COVID times, and without a dog! It’s a brilliant strategy for building relationships at work.
An ex-colleague of mine would get up from her desk every week and say she was going to walk her dog. This used to tickle me as initially she got strange looks from others.
She would leave the room and spend the next hour walking around the large open plan office…talking to people. People walking through the office, people at their desks, at the photocopier. She didn’t have any specific agenda other than to say hello, genuinely ask colleagues how they were and what was going on for them right now. She was a fantastic person to have as part of your People Team and a genius at building relationships at work!
Colleagues looked forward to her visits. They were a regular occurrence without any agenda. She listened to them, shared any help she could offer and where appropriate referred them to someone who could help further. She built strong relationships with colleagues, they trusted her and were always pleased to be approached with a smile.
When you consider taking a dog outside for a walk, you can see the similarities with the people you meet in the dog walking community. Some of them you simply pass the time of day with, others you get to know better over time.
Building Relationships At Work by ‘Walking Your Dog’
If you hadn’t set off on your walk you would never have met any of them. Which is the same at work. If you stay at your desk you limit the number of people you meet, the positivity you can share with others, the positivity you can receive from others! It may just be a smile to start with but over time you will get to know many more people.
Many of us are still working remotely, with a little extra effort this can still be done. Arrange to have a coffee on Zoom with a colleague, it’s easy to get out of the habit of really connecting when working remotely.
If you are a manager this could be an opportunity for you to build and maintain relationships in the workplace by getting to know your teams better. It can be daunting, so maybe start small. Walk your dog for 10 minutes! Call one colleague this week and ask how they are!
There are so many benefits to building relationships at work in this way; positive mental health through feeling more connected, positive employee engagement, improved productivity, morale boost, improved job satisfaction for team members.
On the flip side, a friend of mine shared with me this week that his boss had called him at New Year to say hello and ask how he was. The fact that my friend remarked on it showed me that this was an extraordinary event. My friend was wary of the motive and the conversation and wondered what his boss really wanted, by the end of the call he was none the wiser. He explained that his boss never contacts him, they don’t work at the same site and so rarely have any contact. Such a shame that this open communication was so unexpected it caused suspicion!
Who can you contact this week either by physically or remotely (metaphorically) walking your dog? As we said at the start of this blog, get up, get moving, and don’t let those sub-zero winter temperatures drag us down!
Finally a huge thank you to Sue Parry, who first introduced me to “walking my dog”.
If you’d like support in 2021 with developing your company culture or help with employee engagement, get in touch with kate@applehr.co.uk for an informal chat about what apple hr support can do.