# How to Have a Good Relationship With Colleagues (Without Forcing It) Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/networking/good-relationship-with-colleagues/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/networking/good-relationship-with-colleagues.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving networking at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer What a good relationship with colleagues really takes: how to start one, what to talk about, what to do if colleagues seem uninterested, and how to keep it. ## Key facts - Title: How to Have a Good Relationship With Colleagues (Without Forcing It) - Category: Networking - Primary skill: Networking - Related skills: Teamwork, Professional Behaviors - Primary keyword: good relationship with colleagues - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/networking/good-relationship-with-colleagues/ ## What this page covers - What a good relationship with colleagues really takes: how to start one, what to talk about, what to do if colleagues seem uninterested, and how to keep it. - Practical guidance for good relationship with colleagues - How this topic connects to Networking ## Detailed explanation A good relationship with colleagues is built on a small set of ordinary behaviors repeated over time: showing genuine interest in people, doing what you said you would do, helping before you are asked, [listening properly](/knowledge/professional-behaviors/active-listening/), and staying in contact when you do not need anything. It is far less about being outgoing than most people assume. That is worth knowing if you have ever looked around your workplace and felt that everyone else clicked with each other more easily than you did. There is a reason the standard advice on this rarely helps much: most of it answers a slightly different question than the one you are actually asking. Below are the questions people really ask. ## What makes a good relationship with colleagues? The guides that cover this converge on a short list. Mindtools describes good work relationships as resting on trust, respect, self-awareness, inclusion and open communication; other career resources name communication, teamwork and trust as the three hallmarks. Strip that down and two things remain: people can predict what you will do, and they believe you mean them well. That is a useful reframe, because it means a good relationship with colleagues is not a chemistry you either have with someone or do not. It is a state you can arrive at deliberately, mostly through how you handle small and unremarkable moments rather than big ones. ## Why do good relationships with colleagues matter this much? Because the evidence behind them is unusually strong. In a KPMG survey of US professionals, 83% said work friendships helped them feel more engaged, 81% more satisfied in the job, and 80% more connected to their workplace; 78% reported positive effects on their mental health. Gallup's long-running research points the same way: people who say they have a best friend at work get more done in less time, share more ideas, and were 43% more likely to report having been recognized for their work in the previous week. Gallup also found that the link between close work relationships and outcomes like intent to leave grew stronger after the pandemic, not weaker. The practical read is that this is not a pleasant extra layered on top of the job. It changes how the job goes. ## How do I start with a colleague I barely know? Smaller than you think. Researchers at the Greater Good Science Center describe connection as accumulating through micromoments: a couple of seconds of eye contact, [a two-minute exchange about someone's weekend](/knowledge/networking/small-talk-tips/), a brief piece of appreciation. None of that requires a plan or an invitation, which matters a lot if the idea of putting yourself out there is what has been stopping you. If you want one concrete move, eat lunch away from your desk. It is the lowest-cost way to be available to people without having to organize anything. Then repeat it. Almost every source on this makes the same point in different words: it is the repetition, not any single conversation, that does the work. ## What do I actually talk about, and how personal should I get? Not work, or at least not only work. Deb Liu, writing about making friends at work, puts it bluntly: you cannot build a friendship with someone if the only thing you ever discuss is the thing you are both paid to do. Shared context is what turns a colleague into someone you know. On how personal to go, match rather than lead. Share a little, see what comes back, and let the other person's level set yours. That keeps you from oversharing with someone who wanted a working relationship, and from staying stiff with someone who was ready for more. Treating it as a gradual exchange rather than a single decision is what keeps it comfortable for both of you. ## Do I have to be friends with everyone at work? No, and assuming you should is a fast route to feeling like you are failing. The Greater Good Science Center's work on this distinguishes several different kinds of work friendship rather than one standard, which is a helpful corrective: a warm, reliable working relationship with someone you would never see on a weekend is a perfectly good outcome. It is also worth remembering that not everyone is looking for the same thing you are. Several of the guides make the point that some colleagues actively prefer less social pressure at work. If someone keeps things friendly but bounded, that is usually about them rather than about you. ## What if my colleagues do not seem interested? First, check the timeline. Working relationships form over months, and a handful of unreciprocated attempts is normal rather than a verdict. On Blind, the anonymous professional forum, entire threads exist of people asking whether something is wrong with them because they have not made friends at work, which tells you how common the experience is and how rarely anyone says it out loud. Second, look at the pattern rather than the individual interactions. If it is happening with almost everyone, it is usually something small and fixable in [how you come across](/knowledge/self-awareness/how-to-improve-self-awareness/): how much you talk versus listen, whether you follow through, whether people can read you. That is hard to see from the inside, and finding out [where your skills actually stand](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) is quicker than another few months of guessing. Every one of those behaviors is learnable, which is the part worth holding on to. ## How do I build good relationships with colleagues when I work remotely? This one is genuinely harder, and it is worth saying so. The reason so much published advice on this is written specifically for remote workers is that the ordinary route disappears: nothing happens by accident when there is no kitchen and no walk to the station. So it has to be scheduled, and that feels artificial at first. Put fifteen minutes in the calendar with no agenda. Send the message that is not a request. Stay on the call for a minute after the meeting ends. Gallup's finding that close work relationships mattered more to retention and satisfaction after the pandemic, not less, is the argument for pushing through the awkwardness: distance raised the value of these relationships rather than lowering it. ## How do I keep a good relationship going once the project ends? By making contact that is not a request. The most repeated warning across the career guides on this is that reaching out to colleagues only when you need something is both obvious to them and corrosive. The asymmetry registers immediately, even if nobody ever names it. The maintenance itself is light: an occasional message about something they would find interesting, a note when something goes well for them, a coffee with no purpose. A relationship you have [kept warm](/knowledge/networking/maintain-professional-network/) is simply there when you need it. One you have let go cold has to be rebuilt from scratch, which costs far more than the occasional message would have. ## What good colleague relationships actually run on Read back over those answers and the same few capabilities keep doing the work: noticing people, being someone whose word holds, saying the thing clearly and kindly. None of them are about relationships as such, which is probably why relationship advice on its own rarely fixes this. **Networking** is the one most people would not think to name here, because they picture conferences and LinkedIn. It means something much closer to home: building and maintaining relationships that create mutual value, starting with the colleagues you already have. The useful idea inside it is concentric circles, with a few people you actively maintain, a wider group where trust is established, and a dormant outer ring. Much of what makes a good relationship with colleagues is deciding, deliberately, to move a few people inward, and then adding value to them with information, introductions, or a genuine ear. **Teamwork** is where the trust everyone names as the foundation actually gets built. The specifics matter: be sincere so people can take what you say at face value, be reliable so they can stop checking, be authentic so they are dealing with one consistent person, and forgive, because the relationships that last are the ones where a bad week does not become a permanent verdict. It also covers the thing people quietly worry about most, which is how to disagree with a colleague without the relationship taking damage. **Professional Behaviors** covers the ordinary conduct that either builds goodwill or slowly drains it. The positive half is close to the advice above: treating everyone impartially, showing genuine interest, socializing appropriately, expressing appreciation. The more useful half is the list of things that quietly cost you relationships, like habitual complaining, indirect communication, or trading in other people's reputations. People whose colleague relationships have gone flat are usually not missing a technique; they have picked up one of these without noticing. Which of the three matters most for you is not obvious from the inside, and it may not be one of them at all. There are **twelve work skills** in the framework, and something like managing your own time or your own confidence blocks colleague relationships more often than people expect. [A read across all twelve](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) sorts that out in one pass, and whatever comes back lowest is a behavior you can build rather than a trait you were handed. ## Starting from where you already are You may recognize some of this in how you already work: the colleague you check on, the message you sent that was not asking for anything, the follow-through you do not think about. Those are the same behaviors, just not yet deliberate. Making them deliberate does not require becoming a different kind of person. These are learnable behaviors rather than personality, and a quiet person with good habits builds better colleague relationships than a gregarious one without them. It is also worth knowing that this compounds. The further into a career you get, the more of your working life runs on relationships you built years earlier, and the harder it becomes to start from nothing. You have already done the part most people skip, which is treating this as something to think about rather than something that either happens or does not. ## See which skills are in your way The only thing left is finding out which of these you are already good at, and which one is quietly costing you. The **free** Job Skills Test is a short self-assessment of your work skills. It takes about 7 minutes, shows where you stand across all twelve, and points you to the one that will make the most difference to how you work with the people around you. Nothing to prepare, and nothing to get right. **[Take the test](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/)** *Free, takes about 7 minutes, and your results appear straight away.* ## Who this is for - Professionals building practical workplace skills - Readers looking for specific, usable work advice - Managers, educators, and coaches supporting career readiness ## Common questions ### What is this guide about? What a good relationship with colleagues really takes: how to start one, what to talk about, what to do if colleagues seem uninterested, and how to keep it. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Networking. It also relates to Teamwork, Professional Behaviors. ### What is the recommended next step? Use the free Work Skills Test to reflect on which work skill to improve next. ## Related pages - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/networking.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/teamwork.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/professional-behaviors.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/networking/good-relationship-with-colleagues/ Preferred summary: "What a good relationship with colleagues really takes: how to start one, what to talk about, what to do if colleagues seem uninterested, and how to keep it." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.