Work Friendships: What the Research Says About Having Friends at the Office
Work friendships go with engagement and staying, yet a study of 168 insurance staff tied more work friends to exhaustion too. What research shows.
Emotional Intelligence & Workplace Relationships
Working well with colleagues, managers and difficult people.
Friendships, boundaries, and differences
Self-awareness and managing emotions
Emotional Labor Explained: The Hidden Work of Managing Feelings on the Job
Emotional labor, coined in 1983, is managing feelings for pay. Meta-analyses link faking feelings at work to exhaustion; trying to feel them, less so.
Difficult coworkers
How to Deal With Difficult Coworkers: A General Playbook
A seven-step playbook for difficult coworkers. A quarter of UK workers had conflict or abuse at work in a year (CIPD, 2024); almost half of them let it go.
Toxic workplaces, bullying, and harassment
Signs of a Toxic Workplace: A Checklist
Five research-backed signs of a toxic workplace, plus a checklist. Over 1 in 5 workers in a 2022 ILO survey reported violence or harassment at work.
Empathy and trust
Empathy at Work: What It Is and What It Isn't
Empathy at work means understanding and sharing what a colleague feels. A review of 43 definitions shows how it differs from sympathy and compassion.
Conflict resolution and repair
Conflict Resolution at Work: A Step-by-Step Guide
Six steps for settling a conflict with a colleague. In a 2025 Acas survey, 44% of working-age adults in Great Britain had conflict at work in the past year.
Emotional intelligence basics
What Is Emotional Intelligence? A Clear Guide to a Fuzzy Term
Emotional intelligence names two ideas; in a 2010 meta-analysis, ability EI tests explained an extra 0.2% of job-performance variance beyond IQ and personality.