Wednesday, October 22, 2025

Workplace Ties that Bind

You spend a lot of time with your coworkers. Getting to know them is an investment worth making.

By Justine Van Bolhuis, Research Supervisor

Labour relations research is a pretty niche field. CLAC’s Research Team does a lot of great work, but when I’m meeting someone for the first time, and they ask me, “So, what do you do for work?” it can be difficult to explain to people who have no knowledge of things like interest arbitration, grievance case law, or even much of an idea of what unions do at all. Where to even begin?

In our office, our conversations are peppered with an endless array of acronyms—MOS, MOU, CADB, WSIB, C(B)A, LOU, LOA (actually, I can think of at least three common uses for that one, to add to the confusion!). Plus, there’s a ton of other jargon and references to various databases, projects, committees, and processes that only my coworkers understand. It’s like we speak our own language, incomprehensible to family and friends outside the labour relations world.

I’m sure that in your own field of work, you experience the same thing. You use terms and procedures and have ways of doing work that are second nature to you but go right over the heads of people on the outside.

It’s estimated that we spend one-third of our lives at work—that’s about 90,000 hours on average. No wonder our coworkers understand us in a different way than even our family and friends. We not only share a common language and job knowledge, but over time we experience an entire career’s worth of memories made together—inside jokes, shared accomplishments, annual traditions, milestones celebrated, moments of joy and times of stress experienced alongside our coworkers in the trenches of our chosen field.

With so much time spent at work, the people you spend it with make a big difference. The connections you form in your workplace can be a critical support system over the course of your career.

Sure, you won’t become best buddies with everyone on your team, unit, or work site. But forging workplace bonds with even one or two close coworkers can be what keeps you going when you need to pick someone’s brain on a difficult problem, or you need someone to confide in, or the work feels so overwhelming that you’re not sure where to even start.

How can you start building those connections? It might take some time, but you can start small. Share a lunch table with someone. Ask how their weekend went when you’re at the coffee machine together. Offer a helping hand when you see an opportunity. Ask for advice from a more experienced colleague. Tell someone you’ve noticed the good work they’ve been doing on their part of the project. Request recommendations for a new binge-worthy TV show.

Whether you want to keep things work-focused, or get to know someone beyond the 9 to 5, the possibilities are endless. And since you could be spending a third of your life together, it’s an investment worth making. When the workplace ties that bind are strong, you’ll work together more effectively and enjoy a better work-life.

However many of those 90,000 hours you have left to go, having a good group of people around you will make all the difference.

Workplace Ties that Bind

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