Activity 3.1 | Working from the Heart: Building Relationships with Employees

If you work a full week, a lot of your time is spent in your workplace. For many people a full-time job can be 30% of their total week (including commuting and preparing for the day)! One can see how important it is to develop good working relationships with your colleagues that avoid a lot of interpersonal stress. Having pleasant relationships at work is a big contributor to your well-being and guards against burn-out. Positive relationships lead to feeling valued and motivate educators to enjoy each day.

Part of being a successful leader can be measured by the guidance that you provide to your team. Teams rely on relationships and trust to support the work of their members and the goals they strive to reach. The team leader will look for ways to support each member. Three important aspects of work life are wages, hours and responsibilities, and inclusion. Although sometimes out of their control, wages need to be fair according to credentials and an effective leader will advocate on the part of the staff. Scheduling may be more flexible for the leader to accommodate educators’ priorities and strengths. A caring leader will do their best to assure no one is excluded from opportunities.

Let’s look at one of the best-known theories of motivation that support the value of relationship-building in the workplace.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Note. Wikimedia Commons. CC-BY

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, every person has five levels of needs:

1. physiological or basic: water, food, and shelter,
2. safety: stability, security, and freedom from fear and anxiety,
3. belongingness and love: family, friends, and intimate relationships,
4. self-esteem: achievement, recognition, and respect,
5. self-actualization: achieving full potential, creativity, and fulfillment.

While building a team and organizing responsibilities, the team leader will ensure that all these needs are considered to facilitate relationship building between management, employees and the children in their care.

Reference

Factoryjoe. (2009, June 29). Maslow's hierarchy of needs [SVG image]. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346