Hands Off! Don't Help Your Coworkers

Who hasn't tried to help a coworker having trouble with a task?  (Or a husband, or child, for that matter!)

And don't we all know that people need to figure things out for themselves?  I'm guilty.  I get so frustrated with my helpless (on purpose?) husband and lazy child that I do most of what needs to be done, myself.

Now a new study says you should not offer unless someone asks.

For over-controlling self-starters like me, that's a tall order.

According to newswise.com, if you thought that proactively offering help to your co-workers was a good thing, think again. New workplace research from Michigan State University found that when it comes to offering your expertise, it’s better to keep to yourself or wait until you’re asked, the web site reports.

Building upon previous findings that showed how helping colleagues slows one’s success, management professor Russell Johnson looked more closely at the different kinds of help in which people engage at work – and how that help was received. The research findings, published in Journal of Applied Psychology, quantified the term, “it’s best to stay in your own swim lane.”

“Right now, there’s a lot of stress on productivity in the workplace, and to be a real go-getter and help everyone around you,” Johnson is quoted at the website. “But, it’s not necessarily the best thing when you go out looking for problems and spending time trying to fix them.”

In looking at the ways people help one another in the workplace, Johnson explains that there are two basic kinds of help one can offer – proactive and reactive help – which are differentiated by whether or not assistance was requested.

If you are the go-getter and actively offering to help others, you’re proactively helping. If a co-worker approaches you and asks for assistance that you then give, you’re reactively helping, Johnson explained.

“What we found was that, on the helper side, when people engage in proactive help, they often don’t have a clear understanding of recipients’ problems and issues, and thus they receive less gratitude for it,” Johnson notes. “On the recipient side, if people are constantly coming up to me at work and asking if I want their help, it could have an impact on my esteem and become frustrating. I’m not going to feel inclined to thank the person who tried to help me because I didn’t ask for it.”

Johnson surveyed 54 employees between the ages of 21 and 60 who worked full-time jobs across a variety of industries, including manufacturing, government, health care and education. He collected data over 10 days for a collective 232 daily observations to assess daily helping, receipt of gratitude, perceived positive social impact and work engagement.

With less gratitude for the helper and lower esteem for the person receiving help, Johnson points out that the respondents’ answers proved that proactive help has negative bearings on both sides – but for different reasons.

“Being proactive can have toxic effects, especially on the helper. They walk away receiving less gratitude from the person that they’re helping, causing them to feel less motivated at work the next day. More often than not, help recipients won’t express gratitude immediately, which makes it meaningless as it relates to the helper’s actual act,” Johnson says. “As for the person receiving the unrequested help, they begin to question their own competency and feel a threat to their workplace autonomy.”

In some ways, Johnson says that his research suggests workers mind their own business and not go looking for problems to solve. Ultimately, he says, help is good – but just wait to be asked for it.

I'll remember that the next time my husband asks how to turn on the oven.