Psychology News – A study shows how coworker support enhances creativity at work and compassion at home in working couples. The researchers look to future research to better understand the link between ‘healthy’ workspaces and ‘happy’ homes.
A new study links supportive friendships at work to creativity thinking and better family life.
Researchers at the University of Bath’s School of Management studied in-depth coworker support, resourcefulness and creativity at work, and the work-family equation in dual-income couples. The findings are published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
The study takes “coworker support” to mean talking about life’s issues and challenges, offering understanding and solutions to problems, as well as covering for absence when personal responsibilities crop up at working hours.
The results show that espousing coworker support and compassion have benefits for peers, employers, and family members.
Employees are positively influenced by the compassion and support they receive from their coworkers. This gets manifested in their creativity, resourcefulness, and efficiency at work. Especially informal coworker support, without the intervention of supervisors or work policies, boosts employee morale in such ‘cared for’ workplaces.
The results also show that “coworker compassion” is often brought home and passed on to the respective spouses. One of the lead researchers, Professor Yasin Rofcanin, elaborates, “This might mean they encourage them to open up about stresses, seek to resolve issues, or make improvements to the juggle of work-life arrangements that benefits the family.”
The researchers, however, acknowledge the drawbacks of excessive involvement of coworkers in both work and family matters. They look to further research to better understand how dynamics in the workspace and the home can help maintain a healthy work-life balance in working couples.
To Know More You May Refer To
Stollberger, J., Las Heras, M., & Rofcanin, Y. (2021). Sharing is caring: The role of compassionate love for sharing coworker work-family support at home to promote partners’ creativity at work. The Journal of applied psychology, 10.1037/apl0000985. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000985
