Advantages of Helping a Coworker

Be a Helping HandIn any company, you will inevitably have coworkers that you work with day in and day out. No matter how busy you are with your own work, there are times when a coworker goes to you to ask for help. The big question is: Should you help?

In an environment where every day feels like its “every man for himself,” you might think twice about helping others. It’s understandable for an employee to think of himself first, but while it may seem like the best decision for the short term, it might not be best in the long run.

Here are some ways that lending a helping hand can help you:

Build new relationships – In the world of business, where sometimes it feels like everything is on fast-forward, you don’t have enough time to finish your workload, let alone spend time to help others finish theirs. However, helping others gives you the chance to build on the working relationship you have with a coworker.

A better relationship among team members is desirable, especially in a team environment where the success of projects depends on members working together. You don’t know when the next time you need help will be, so you can never have too many friends who have your back.

Be a real team player- A lot of job seekers claim to be team players, when in actuality they don’t necessarily have that quality. Helping others shows that you are not only a good solo employee, but also a team player who is ready to assist others. It also works in your favor when you’re up for promotion or want to use a coworker or boss as a reference.

Learn new tricks – You may have things that you do your way, but helping others lets you see how they do things. You might even learn a new trick, while also helping someone in the process.

Helping your coworkers is a habit that all bosses would like to see in their employees, but this doesn’t happen often because it also exposes you to risks—risks that can hurt your career for both short and long term.

So, you’ve got to be careful. If you want to continue helping others while keeping your welfare your first priority, then you need to find the perfect balance between helping and not helping. It’s important to be mindful of how much time you spend helping others—is this hurting your performance? Never help at the expense of your own career.

Finding time to assist your coworkers is not an easy thing to do. Still, you’ll probably find that it’s the right thing to do, and you never know—someone might repay the favor when you need it sometime.

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Alan Carniol

Alan is the creator of Interview Success Formula, a training program that has helped more than 80,000 job seekers to ace their interviews and land the jobs they deserve. Interviewers love asking curveball questions to weed out job seekers. But the truth is, most of these questions are asking about a few key areas. Learn more about how to outsmart tough interviewers by watching this video.