A lot of emphasis has been placed on relationships in the workplace recently, and it’s for good reason. Stress is a poison in any job, and stress levels are now major concerns for employers and doctors. The practical issues are very complex, however, in real world situations, and not easily avoided. Relationships can cause serious problems in the workplace, both for the organization and individuals.

The classic relationship study is a negative interaction between management and staff. This is a real story:

The overall manager was thoroughly disliked by the staff of the administrative section, with a couple of exceptions. He was considered tactless, rude, and overbearing. The legal officers were less hostile, although they had their own opinions.

The result of this situation was an ongoing series of clashes, only mitigated by the fact that the overall manager didn’t interfere more frequently with the admin staff. Domestic issues, personal problems, a case of depression aggravated by the work situation, and pretty low general morale were the result. Some of the admin staff felt under utilized, others found themselves having their times readjusted to suit the manager, with the inevitable levels of friction involved. Since most of these staff had families, that was an added severe strain on the relationship.

It developed that admin staff were actively avoiding the manager, as much as possible. This is hardly a positive relationship, and since these staff were all experienced, middle aged, people, a difficult situation. The usual mechanism, of some sort of working relationship with everybody, held up to a point, but it could never have been called a happy place to work.

A compensatory mechanism, in the form of improved relationships between staff, was the result. A common enemy had been identified. It was reasonably normal for people to assist each other, filling in for each other where they could when someone was given additional, inconvenient duties.

Even so, the abrasive situations weren’t always easy to handle. In one case, it was decided that admin staff from the branch would fill in for a redundant switchboard operator. This involved taking staff from the legal branch and others, and rotating them through the position in three hour shifts.

This was overall a pretty pointless exercise, and the relationship with the manager, never good, reached rock bottom. No effort was made to repair the relationships, and the result was the exact opposite of 'participatory' team work.

There was no team, despite the genuine effort of staff to assist each other. There was no leadership, and staff were left to their own devices to do their work. The result was a definite resentment, and active avoidance, of any requests for additional work, or use of time. That just didn’t happen. If anyone was able to avoid it, they did, and that created further friction between people as otherwise routine issues evolved into personal clashes.

Arguably, it was the most effective way of completely destroying any working relationship with the manager. Middle managers were equally irritated, their staff being hijacked regardless of their own sections’ work volumes. That in turn led to a firmly entrenched method of slowing down their own work.

The stresses of working with that manager also created a few unnecessary clashes elsewhere, as angry people with frayed nerves bumped into each other at the wrong times, even on quite unrelated matters. Generally, the relationships were good, but everyone, at some point, got defensive, and the resulting sniping exercises sometimes took weeks or months to subside.

It’s anyone’s guess how many difficulties could have been completely avoided with a different management style. Productivity was achieved despite, not because, of management. Time was squandered through inefficiencies on all sides. Some people were flat out while others were well on top of their work and could have been used to assist. Just about everything a manager with a good working relationship with staff could have done, was never done.

The fact is that when a relocation happened, every single staff member still there from the original branch left.

As a case study, an important point is that the instinct is to avoid stress, and anyone identified as a source of stress. That principle applies in any workplace, and it’s advisable for people to assess their own reactions. If a person or situation is causing enough stress to avoid, that’s a symptom of a real issue which can affect health, job prospects, and career. It’s a basic fact that some relationships can become problems in their own right.

The textbook response is to defuse situations like that, but realistically, management and staff can’t act as a sort of in-house mediation function under all conditions. Anyone who’s ever done mediation will tell you that there are cases where mediation and conflict resolution don’t work, because the parties are too far apart. I’ve seen cases where parties couldn’t even communicate effectively, speaking the same language, face to face.

Relationships are crucial parts of the workplace. When they go wrong, they can be real nightmares. Workplace bullying, gossip, insults, and a range of other behaviors, including sexual harassment and assault, are all very serious matters, in some cases with legal ramifications.

The only good thing to be said about people problems is that they give you some warning of approaching troubles. The best approach is realistic assessment. In the case above, there was no real method of dealing with the manager, other than leaving. Is it worth staying in a job where there are more problems than positives?

A workplace with good relationships is a blessing, and should be appreciated.

Anything else, take a good look at your options. Don’t stick around in a destructive environment for any longer than it takes to leave. You’ll feel a lot better.