Soft skills | Being 'easy to work with' is an undervalued skill - but should it be celebrated?

In the past year, business influencers, founders and LinkedIn users have shouted about the importance of acknowledging and celebrating employees who are ‘easy to work with’.

These figures have expressed the importance of this often-overlooked character trait. And yet, what makes someone ‘easy to work with’ is subjective and can mean different things to different people.

According to a Forbes article, being positive, a helper, responding quickly to colleagues, and saying ‘yes’, are all behaviours that lends itself to being a pleasant person to work with.

Whilst being helpful and attentive are certainly skills that go a long way in any business, they’re not necessarily traits every employee needs to be good at their job. And interestingly, many of these characteristics are associated with increased levels of stress and burnout.