How to encourage your team members to ask for help.
When I came across across this study one morning that led with this statistic: 1 in 3 employees would rather scrub a toilet than ask for help, it made me chuckle out loud. I know these employees – in fact, it reflects how most employees at organizations I consult with tend to act. With so much of my consultancy’s work dedicated to supporting socially-conscious organizations, I encounter a lot of “green energy” with employees who would prefer not to be a burden to others.
This manifests in beautiful ways: team members with deep care and affection for their colleagues, self-starters who will work late to keep a project on deadline, and a working environment that feels breezy and light. But it also yields some challenging scenarios, like spaces where conflict is often suppressed, not addressed, superficial relationships that don’t have space to deepen over time, and employees who feel burnt out and isolated even when they’re surrounded by a supportive team.
Asking for help is raw. It’s vulnerable. And it’s necessary to feel a sense of connection and safety in our interpersonal relationships, whether in an intimate relationship or with our colleagues at work.
Here are a few tips to encourage your employees to ask for help:
1. Model the behavior you wish to spark
Culture change starts with you. Make an effort to model asking for help around your colleagues. You can do this in a number of ways – ask an employee that you don’t consult with for advice on a current project during an all-hands meeting. Post a note in the team Slack channel for your colleagues’ favorite banana bread recipe. Email a few members of another team to help explain a product functionality you’re still confused on.
Whenever you can, report back publicly on what you gained by asking for support, like “shout-out to Hinda for explaining the new sharing feature the product team implemented last week. I was really struggling to understand why it drastically improves the experience for our customers.” It helps to normalize these asks.
2. Create Structured Peer Support Systems
Implement formal mechanisms like peer mentoring programs, regular "office hours" where experts are available for questions, or cross-functional buddy systems. This removes the awkwardness of cold outreach and makes help-seeking feel routine rather than exceptional.
You can also create peer mentoring space in all-hands or other scheduled meetings. For example, you can lead with “what’s one brave ask and offer you have for the team?” Employees might be quick to have an offer – like offering to copyedit, or bake something sweet – but may struggle to find one on their own. Apply the recommendations in #1 to have a few brave asks queued up by yourself and other key stakeholders, so employees know how to best use this time.
3. Reward Collaborative Behavior
Publicly acknowledge both those who ask great questions and those who provide helpful support to colleagues. Make collaboration a measured part of performance reviews. When you reward the behavior you want to see, you signal that asking for and providing help is valued, not viewed as weakness.
The key is shifting from a culture where independence is prized above all else to one where learning and mutual support drive success.
When teams ask for help freely, something powerful happens. Problems get solved faster. Mistakes cost less. People actually enjoy working together. We've seen that teams who share knowledge openly consistently outperform those where everyone struggles alone. The change starts with leaders who are willing to ask the first question.
