Relationship building at work: how to build strong workplace relationships

What is a working relationship?

A working relationship is the connection between two people who work together: how much they trust each other, how openly they talk and how easily they get things done. A professional relationship puts the weight on roles and standards: you stay respectful and reliable whether or not you click. Neither one needs friendship. You can work brilliantly with someone you’d never invite to dinner.

A good working relationship shows up in small, practical ways. You get a straight answer when you ask. You hear about problems while there is still time to fix them. A disagreement about the work stays about the work. And when one of you has a bad week, the other one notices.

6 types of workplace relationships

Most people have all six. Each needs something slightly different, so here is what a good one looks like and one habit that builds it.

• With your manager

  Good looks like: You both know what matters most this quarter, you hear about problems early, and feedback goes both ways without drama.

  One habit: Bring your own agenda to every one-on-one: one win, one blocker and one question.

• With peers on your team

  Good looks like: You cover for each other, share shortcuts, argue about the work and still eat lunch together.

  One habit: Before you ship something that touches a teammate's work, show them first and ask what you missed.

• With your direct reports

  Good looks like: People tell you bad news first, ask for help before it's too late, and know where they stand.

  One habit: Ask each person once a month: what's one thing I could do differently that would help you?

• With partners on other teams

  Good looks like: You can ask a favor without a ticket, and they warn you before a change lands on your desk.

  One habit: Learn their goals and deadlines, and say yes to their requests when it's cheap for you.

• With mentors

  Good looks like: Someone a few steps ahead tells you honestly what they see, and you act on it.

  One habit: Go to each conversation with one specific question, and report back on what you did with their last advice.

• With clients and customers

  Good looks like: They trust your word, call you before they escalate, and tell you the real reason when something isn't working.

  One habit: Close every request with a short note on what you did and when they will hear from you next.

How to build relationships at work: 10 habits

Building relationships is mostly small moments, repeated. None of these takes more than a few minutes, and together they make you the colleague people want on their project.

1. Book the 15-minute coffee. One short chat a week with someone you don't work with yet. Ask what they're working on and what makes their job hard.
2. Close every loop you open. If you said you'd check, check, then tell them what you found, even when you couldn't find the answer.
3. Ask for help on something small. Asking a colleague for their advice on a real problem tells them you value what they know. Thank them and say how it turned out.
4. Give credit in public, by name. Name the person and the exact thing they did, where the work is shown: "Sam's test plan caught this before launch." Thanks to "the team" credits nobody.
5. Learn how each person likes to work. Chat or call, mornings or afternoons, a draft or a finished piece. Ask once, then work their way when you can.
6. Show up for their work. Go to their demo, read their launch post, comment on their proposal. Paying attention to someone's work is a compliment they notice.
7. Help others look good. When a colleague presents, send your part early, back up their point in the room and flag their typo privately. People remember who helped them shine.
8. Share context and contacts freely. Forward the doc, make the introduction, explain the history. Sharing what you know makes you the person people want to work with.
9. Disagree in the room, not in the hallway. Raise the objection to the person, about the work, with a reason. Complaining about them afterwards is what breaks relationships.
10. Ask before you assume. When a message reads as cold or a deadline slips, ask what's going on before you decide what it means.

These habits are the individual side of team culture. For the team-wide side, our guides to team camaraderie and building trust in the workplace have rituals and a 30-day plan. And if small talk is the hard part, try our water cooler talk topics.

Boundaries: friendly, friends and “coworkers are not your friends”

The phrase “coworkers are not your friends” spread on social media as a warning against treating a job like a family. It has a point, and so does the other side.

Both are true. The practical middle path most people land on with colleagues from work:

• Be friendly with everyone. Warm, fair and reliable is the baseline you owe every colleague. Friendship is optional and mutual.
• Keep work decisions about work. Friendship can't decide who gets the good project, a better rating or a pass on a missed deadline.
• Watch who is left out. Inside jokes and lunch plans are fine; a group that makes others feel outside is not.
• Share at the pace of trust. Let personal topics come up as the relationship grows. Nobody owes colleagues their private life.

When a friendship and a reporting line collide

The hardest case is a friend who becomes your manager, or a friend who now reports to you. The friendship can survive, but only if you both treat the work relationship as the one that sets the rules.

• Say it out loud early: "Our friendship matters to me, and I'll need to make some calls at work you won't like. Let's agree how we handle that."
• Keep work talk at work and in one-on-ones, not over dinner or in private chats.
• Give the friend the same feedback, the same access and the same scrutiny as everyone else, and let the team see it.
• If you have to rate, pay or promote a close friend, tell your own manager or HR and ask for a second reviewer.

How to repair a strained working relationship

Most strained working relationships come from one unresolved moment or one repeated habit, not from bad people. This five-step conversation works with a peer, a partner team or your manager. Fill in the brackets and use your own words.

1. Ask for a private conversation. Pick a calm moment, not straight after a clash, and keep it one to one.Do you have 20 minutes this week? I'd like to talk about how we work together. I think we could make it easier for both of us.
2. Own your part first. Start with something you did. It lowers the other person's guard faster than anything else.I'll start with my side. When [situation], I [what you did], and I can see that made things harder for you.
3. Name one pattern, not their character. One specific, recent behavior and its effect on the work. Leave out words like always, never and attitude.The thing I'd most like to sort out is [specific pattern]. When it happens, [effect on the work or on you].
4. Ask, then listen. Let them answer without defending yourself. Repeat back what you heard before you respond.How has this looked from your side? What would make working with me easier?
5. Agree on one change each, and a check-in. Small and specific beats a big promise. Put the check-in in both calendars before you leave.So I'll [your change], and you'll [their change]. Can we check in on [date] and see how it's going?

If the first conversation doesn’t move things, a neutral third person can help: your manager, a mentor or HR. For harassment, discrimination or anything unsafe, skip the script and go to HR. Teams that want to practice hard conversations together can try our conflict resolution activities.

20 relationship building activities for teams

Each takes one line to explain and under an hour to run. Pick one and repeat it; a monthly habit does more than a yearly event.

Want longer lists? Our team bonding activities guide has 37 more, and team cohesion has a 10-question check to see where your team stands.

For managers: are work relationships on your team healthy?

You can't schedule friendship, but you can see whether people trust each other. Look for these signals over a month, not in a single meeting.

Healthy signals

• Each person can name a go-to colleague outside the team for the problems they can't solve alone.
• People give each other direct feedback on drafts without routing it through you.
• Two people who clashed last quarter now work together without a referee.
• Newer and longer-serving staff pair up on work, not only with people who joined when they did.
• Requests to other teams get quick answers, because people know who to ask by name.
• When someone is struggling, a colleague notices and checks in before you do.

Signals worth acting on

• People ask you to pass a message to a colleague instead of talking to them.
• Two people avoid each other: they skip each other's meetings or only talk in writing.
• Complaints about a colleague reach you, but never the colleague.
• Handoffs between two people break often, and each side has a story about the other.
• The same pairs always team up, and a few people are never picked.
• Nobody on other teams knows who your people are or what they do.

Four things to do this month

1. Ask one question in every one-on-one. "Who on the team do you go to when you're stuck?" The answers show you the real map of the team, and who is missing from it.
2. Pair people on purpose. Put two people who rarely work together on one small project with a shared goal.
3. Send people to each other. When someone brings you a question a colleague could answer, introduce them instead of answering it yourself.
4. Deal with friction early. When two people clash, talk to each of them within the week, before sides form.

Relationship building games, run by a host

Want someone else to run the icebreaking? The Team Discovery Challenge is a scavenger hunt combined with show and tell, so people learn something real about each other in an hour. Improv is a live hour of “Yes, And” exercises that get people listening and building on each other’s ideas. For cross-team groups, Speed Networking is an automated format on its own networking platform, not Zoom: a short welcome video, then private three-minute one-on-ones, about 45 minutes in all.

• The Team Discovery Challenge and Improv run live on Zoom by default, or Teams, Google Meet or Webex on request.
• Book about 2 weeks ahead.
• Team split across time zones? A hosted game can run as two sessions so everyone joins in working hours.

More formats for meeting new colleagues are on our virtual networking events page. Send your date and headcount and get a free quote. We reply within 24 hours.