Past research has confirmed that negative interactions at work hurt employees’ well-being and productivity, but the time spent at work is only one part of an employee’s day. The authors’ recent research affirms that conflicts at home also negatively affect our energy and emotions throughout the workday and also shows that many employees react to their bad home experiences in a surprising way: by offering help to their colleagues. This research points to ways that employees can cope with negative experiences that spill over to work — and also how managers can support their employees who may be dealing with home stress at work.

Read about incivility before the workday.

Managers looking to encourage engagement and inclusion in remote meetings have long encouraged team members to keep their cameras turned on. But researchers examining remote employees’ reactions to the constant video conference calls of the remote work era have found that keeping video on all day actually increases so-called “Zoom fatigue.” That’s particularly true for women and new employees, groups that already may feel that they are under the microscope.

Read about Zoom fatigue.

Small talk is something many of us miss about going into the office, and for good reason: It helps people feel emotionally connected and boosts collaboration and creativity. Yet not everyone is a fan; some think small talk is inauthentic and a waste of time. To resolve these views, the authors did a 15-day study of the impact that small talk had on 151 workers. They found that though small talk was both uplifting and distracting to employees, the positives outweighed the negatives, and the negatives could be managed. The issue today is that the move to remote work environment is cutting many people off from workplace small talk. However, managers can find ways to integrate it into virtual settings and use new tools to make it more inclusive and productive.

Read about small talk amongst coworkers.

There are a number of reasons to hide our frustrations and negative thoughts at work. But the way you do so matters. The authors research shows that genuine attempts to feel better yourself offers more benefits compared to simply faking your emotions. Participants in a study who made more of a genuine effort were more likely to receive emotional and material help from colleagues, and reported productivity gains over those who merely “put on a happy face.”

Read about emotional labor with coworkers.

While research has long found that breastmilk is healthy for babies, we still know very little about how pumping affects women who work full-time — and the companies that employ them. The authors recently sought to answer this question across two studies; their findings indicate that there are benefits for companies and women and their families alike when they are given the time and space to pump or breastfeed comfortably.

Read about supporting breastfeeding mothers at work.

Most employees, at one point or another, have been the victim of incivility at work. In research, one finding that has been frequently documented is that women tend to report experiencing more incivility at work than their male counterparts. However, it has been unclear to as to who is perpetrating the mistreatment towards women at work, and why. A recent study sheds some light on this, showing that women reported experiencing more incivility from other women than from their male coworkers. In addition, when women acted more assertively at work — expressing opinions in meetings, assigning people to tasks, and taking charge — they were even more likely to report receiving uncivil treatment from other women at work. Men who deviated from gender norms were not punished by their peers similarly.

Read about incivility amongst women.