Friendships at Work

Social relationships at work have always been a contentious issue. Traditional thinking dictated that friendships between colleagues are a distraction and a threat to productivity, and so should be discouraged. But, as you may know, I can never resist an opportunity to turn conventional wisdom on its head! In this piece, I will be arguing that friendships at work are actually fundamentally beneficial to employee engagement, and by extension, to your bottom line.

Why We NEED to Make Friends at Work...

In 1995, psychologists Mark Leary and Roy Baumeister published a groundbreaking research paper on the reasons why we form social relationships. Their theory is called the Belongingness Hypothesis, and their findings are now widely accepted in the field of psychiatry. The Belongingness Hypothesis states that the need to be part of a social group is a basic and innate human need. In fact, the desire for personal attachments is a fundamental part of what makes us human. Without meaningful human connections, our physical, emotional and mental well-being suffers. So important is our association with others that we generally try to avoid breaking these social bonds, even when the relationship becomes strained, hostile, or even abusive – which is why we find final separations such as divorce or death so difficult to bear.

Logically, this hypothesis would be applicable to all areas of human interaction, including the workplace. Given we spend 8-9 hours a day at work, it makes sense that we should seek to fill some of our innate interpersonal needs by connecting on a friendship level with colleagues. To quote an extensive Gallup survey on workplace relationships, ‘Human beings are social animals, and work is a social institution’ – so intuitively it is unrealistic to expect relationships with work colleagues and friendships to be mutually exclusive.

The Business Value of Work Friendships

The findings of the survey also revealed that also found that friendships at work increase employee well-being, which in turn leads to increased productivity. The poll, which interviewed a staggering 15 million employees worldwide, revealed that having close friendships at work increases job satisfaction by 50%. Those who have a best friend at work are seven times more likely to be engaged in the workplace, whereas their friendless counterparts have only a 1-in-12 chance of being engaged. Those who enjoy workplace friendships are also better at communicating with customers, they get more work done in fewer hours, have fewer workplace accidents, and are more likely to engage in idea sharing. They are more creative, innovative and more open to change.

This hypothesis is backed up by anthropological science which proves that -the best indicator of a species’ brain size is the size of their social network. Our sociability is, in effect, one of the reasons why we occupy the prime position at the top of the food chain. In his book, Vital Friends, which is in large part based on the Gallup research, author Tom Rath even draws a similar parallel between our sociability and profit. Friendships at work, he writes, ‘have consistently been one of the best predictors of an organization’s profitability’.

Having work friends also vastly increases the probability of overall happiness in life. The Gallup study found that people with at least three close friends at work were 96% more likely to experience very high levels of life satisfaction. In short, employees who have meaningful, fulfilling social relationships with co-workers are happier at home and happier at work. Social scientists have estimated that friends you interact with every day can increase our happiness to the same extent as earning an additional $100,000 a year. And, of course, the most likely place to see people on a daily basis is the workplace. So much for the prevailing philosophy!

Tony Hsieh, the multi-millionaire CEO of the online clothing company Zappos, is a high-profile advocate of friendships at work. He believes that his employees are the real driver of profitability, and so has cultivated a working environment which nurtures their well-being by encouraging the formation of friendship bonds. On the company’s website, he is quoted as saying, ‘Our number one priority is company culture. Our whole belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff like delivering great customer service or building a long-term enduring brand will just happen naturally on its own.’ These employee-orientated corporate values cost very little to implement. Again, it involves adopting a permissive attitude towards fun, as well as fostering a positive, family-like environment within the organisation. And it has paid off; Zappos is now banking $1 billion worth of sales annually.

The Anti-Friend Movement...

Despite the mounting evidence that friendships at work have a positive impact on a company’s bottom line, many organizations still frown upon on-the-job friendships, with some even actively discouraging them. Prevalent organizational structures, with rigid reporting lines and impersonal all-staff emails from leaders, restrict the free flow of ideas and limit opportunities for staff to establish relationships beyond their immediate teams. 

Employees, too, often think that friendships at work are inadvisable, particularly among the pre-millennial generations. The Gallup survey found that currently only 30% of respondents said they had a ‘best friend at work’, while Rath states that only 20% of employees ‘dedicate time to cultivating friendships at work’. There are various reasons for this. Some older employees may just be falling victim to old ways of thinking, while others may want to maintain professional boundaries to avoid the potential for workplace disputes to spill over into friendships, and vice versa. Employees also worry about finding themselves in a position of divided loyalty, should a work friend find themselves in a dispute with the company. Undoubtedly, these potential pitfalls will need to be managed effectively, with both leaders and individual employees taking responsibility for navigating any choppy waters which may arise from the blurring of boundaries between colleagues and workplace friends. However, the benefits to your team’s overall happiness, and ultimately to the wealth of your shareholders, far outweigh the challenges. 

Action Plan...

So, take a leaf from Tony Hsieh’s code and foster an environment conducive to greater social interaction within your organization. If (as I mentioned in a previous article) disaffected employees unleash a vicious circle of negativity, what better way to battle this than creating a team of friends who are also colleagues, to unleash a virtuous cycle of positivity?