Navigating Workplace Relationships: New Rules for Connection
Work relationships have experienced a shift. Clear boundaries have replaced work spouses and besties. While it is still possible to have good work friends, people aren’t staying in careers long enough to form these kinds of bonds, even in a downward-trending job market.
A recent Glassdoor survey of over 800 US professionals found that people are more hands-off when bonding with co-workers. 53% said they avoid making personal connections because they want to separate their work and personal lives. The idea of a “work spouse” is also being downgraded, with 44% saying they would never have one.
How Work Friends Influence Employee Productivity and Morale
Adam Grant, Glassdoor’s Chief Worklife Expert, says, “Having friends at work predicts higher happiness and well-being,” adding, “on average, people perform better when they’re working with friends.” There is a lot of data to back this up from a psychological perspective.
A Gallup survey found that work friendships are also vital to productivity. Our own data shows that frequent collaborators have higher productivity. Frequent collaborators are not necessarily friends, but there are more opportunities for them to be friendly since they contact colleagues more often and are more likely to establish relationships.
Work friendships also positively influence employee happiness and well-being. This increased morale can lead to a more positive and supportive work environment and a boost in retention. Feeling connected to colleagues fosters a sense of belonging, which can significantly reduce the likelihood of employees seeking opportunities elsewhere. Individuals with strong social ties at work are more likely to feel invested in the organization and less inclined to leave.
If work friends are valuable for productivity and morale, this shift is concerning and something companies should actively try to mitigate. You can’t force people to make friends. Still, you can create opportunities for friendships to grow by offering social events, sending colleagues to professional conferences and events together, and not policing their time so much that they don’t feel like they can put down their tools to talk.
Setting Healthy Boundaries and Initiating Work Friendships
There are several reasons why work friendships are on the decline. One benefit of returning to the office is that it offers more opportunities to form bonds, but some don’t see that as a good thing after working remotely in their own space.
In some cases, work friendships are complicated. They can create conflicts of interest or even favoritism. For instance, if a work friend is up for a promotion and you're involved in the decision-making process, you might face a difficult situation. You have to make a fair decision, which can cause tension with your friend, or you may lean towards favoritism, which is unfair to other team members.
Separating personal feelings from professional judgment can be challenging when you have close work friendships. You may find it hard to give constructive criticism to a friend or to make objective decisions that could negatively affect them. Sometimes, strong work friendships can lead to the formation of cliques or the spread of gossip, which can exclude other employees and create a toxic work environment.
For introverts and some neurodivergent employees, interruptions that disrupt their flow, known as context switching, often present themselves in the office. Headphones in at least one ear are now an accepted part of the in-office uniform, where they weren’t even five years ago. Making friends at work is tougher because everyone is putting up intentional walls to make themselves less accessible and, therefore, more productive. These boundaries, which may have been looked on at one time as rude, are now widely accepted.
With so many barriers to entry for getting to know your co-workers, you have to intentionally and respectfully approach anyone you may want to be your friend. Susan Scott, author of Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time, suggests starting with regular conversations about work and progressing to deeper subjects over time. She breaks them down into three levels of communication:
Level One: Functional Work Conversations
These are the day-to-day things you need to ask co-workers about, such as deadlines and task questions.
Level Two: Positional Conversations
These conversations invite perspectives and opinions about work-related matters. They’re more detailed and can spark more emotion.
Level Three: Transformational Conversations
These involve personal stories, sharing emotions, and being more vulnerable with co-workers.
Scott wrote her book after realizing she was siloing herself in her office as the company’s CFO after engaging in an optional walk with co-workers. Part of her realization was that to be a better leader, she had to be visible and vulnerable with the people at her company. This may be even more important for leaders, as vulnerability with followers can build a high-trust culture at work.
Even if you’re not quite ready to open up to the point where you have work besties, following Scott’s advice to have transformational conversations can at least move the needle to improving your own likeability at work, even if you are just there for a short time. Ditching work friendships entirely as a concept is bad for employees individually and companies as a whole, and hopefully, the trend doesn’t continue.
Do you want to see how your employees are connecting and collaborating? Prodoscore offers visibility into how they’re getting along with each other, including identifying employees who may be unnecessarily siloing themselves.
