What makes work bearable? We discover the Number 1 answer.

What makes work bearable?
Well, there are lots of answers to that question. Sense of doing something valuable. The pay. Convenient hours/location.
But in a recent report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, on work place support, one answer came out on top.
What’s the single most important factor that makes work bearable?
The support of work colleagues and family.
If we’re surrounded by a little group of supportive folk at work; or if we go home to a place where we feel our work is understood – then we’re all right, whatever difficulties and challenges the work place is throwing up.
This rings some personal bells. In a rather varied work career, the only job I haven’t enjoyed – and decided to leave – was a job where I dreaded the team.
The work was fine, right up my street; but not the team around me. So I took a financial risk and jumped…even though I had nothing to jump onto.
It makes me think that wise organisations allow space for mutual support.
Two colleagues talking might, on the face, of it, be poor productivity; but it may also be keeping them going, lifting their spirits, helping them stay engaged with their work.
The support of work colleagues matters; what we go home to matters.
How’s that all working out for you?