Colleagues who disturb you at work are actually very good for your career
Just that chat on the left while you're comfortably sitting behind your laptop trying to get about six hundred tasks done. We're going back to the office more and more, and that's fine.
Nice. Fun. But it is also much more distracting than when you're working alone at home, right?
My child had a birthday
Now it turns out that colleagues who interrupt you at work are actually very good for your career. Even if you sometimes find them annoying and notice that you're being pulled out of your ‘flow’. So that's good. Be distracted and don't find anyone talking to you while you're diligently typing annoying. Interruptions turn out to be positive for our feeling of belonging, researchers conclude. And that's what we all ultimately want, especially after that boring working from home time due to corona.
Being social
Just when you're nicely into your Excel, that colleague suddenly appears in front of you with pictures of her son's daycare. ‘Look, he got to treat!’ Nice, you think, but what about your deadline? It may seem annoying, but it ultimately leads to more job satisfaction and therefore you are happier, more content with your job, and ultimately also more successful. Because a happy person at the office works better. ‘We are simply social beings with an inherent need to interact with others,’ says lead researcher Harshad Puranik.
Look at that, how clever
Even if you have ‘done less’ on an office day than when you work from home, it is and remains good for us humans to be among people. ‘We find that interruptions can really help individuals from an interpersonal perspective; people feel they belong when others come to talk to them or ask them questions, even if they are distracted from their tasks,’ explains researcher Heather Vough. So yes, it is distracting. And before you know it, you're chatting for half an hour about new outfits for your kids, treats for school, and those high parking costs these days. You know it. But chatting about everyday life is nice. It's good for you. And thus also for your career.
Who wants to see a photo of my sons?
