Working Friendships
Strong Relationships make for a happy and fulfilled life—and not just on the weekends.
By the latter stages of the pandemic, when many of us had been working from home for close to a year, we ached for more connection. We missed the ready-made interactions in the office and the various low-key ways we tried to see friends and families during our free time. Perhaps this renewed attention to significant others in our lives was partly because we had to decide actively, and with intention, to cultivate and find these moments. We thought about our friends, missed them terribly and reached out frequently over the video waves in order to feel connected at a time of great loss. Without the ease of existing relationships, in pretty much most aspects of our lives during the height of Covid, we felt bereft and at sea; we perceived that something was lost and unavailable.
This loss not only affected us in our private lives, but also in the ways we enjoyed working together collaboratively. In our research and conversations about this topic it became increasingly obvious that the effort to fill this social need ought not be a task for each one of us alone, but rather fall to the collective, that is the organization or place of work.
[A brief note on the “we” in this piece: SmarterWisdom has been joined by Dr. Sidra D. Smith, a former colleague and now good friend of Jane’s. These two are cooking up more writing about friendships; stay tuned.]
Building and existing in a healthy culture of inclusion and belonging is first and foremost a key to well-being, both for an organization and individuals. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum, in her brilliant book Creating Capabilities uses the word “affiliation” to refer to being “able to live with and toward others…to be able to imagine the situation of another.” Early in January 2023 a summary report from the Harvard Study of Adult Development hit the news; this detailed research, conducted over a period of 85 years, concluded that Relationships Make for a Happy Life. And given the significant time most adults spend at work – whether in person or remotely – we acknowledge that well-being is developed just as much in our workplace relationships as in purely social settings. Beginning to create and integrate structures that foster and nurture the building of relationships will be important. One goal, however, is to uncover and develop the practical routines and applications that will enable this structure to exist, ideally seamlessly.
Knowing that strong connections at work leads to contentment and greater personal and organizational success indicates a need for us to commit to these efforts in an explicit and focused manner. Loneliness or alienation can be destructive and certainly erode the teamwork and collaboration required by the workplace of today. Our gut tells us that finding good relationships, even friendships, with our work colleagues, might make the difference between success and failure for organizations. And there are people out there who stand ready to help us in this endeavor! A search on the Internet right now will reap: How to make friends at work? How to make friends with your boss? How a boss might befriend a direct report? We have also found that coaches are offering to help people make friends at work.
An article by Alok Patel and Stephanie Plowman citing research by Gallup comes right out with the statement that: “I have a best friend at work” is a strong predictor of whether you are likely to stay in your job. Gallup also found a concrete link between having a best friend at work and the amount of effort a worker expends on their job. For example, “Women who strongly agree they have a best friend at work are more than twice as likely to be engaged (63%) compared with those who say otherwise (29%). There is no doubt that effort and engagement are signs of connected employees in general–and if having a friend at work makes you more likely to stay in your job, perhaps the quiet quitting and resignations that many employers have seen in the past year or so may diminish.
Other current research says there should in fact be more active encouragement in the workplace for friendships to develop—in particular after the effects of lockdowns and enforced work from home during the pandemic. In an article by Jon Clifton in HBR, October 2022, Clifton writes: “More than 300 million people globally don’t have a single friend, according to Gallup data. And more than 20% of people don’t have friends or family they can count on whenever they need them.” Finding friends and capitalizing on these relationships at work will not only increase our productivity and success, but will also improve what researchers call our “social health,” an important indicator of happiness and satisfaction. In the same article Clifton goes on to list out ways that organizations can directly and positively affect their employees in forming healthy relationships and in fact directly and positively improve the workplace for everyone.
So what are the long-term implications for interpersonal relationships in the workplace? Are there any specific recommendations as to how to improve your culture and climate? The key above all is intentionality: 1) agree that creating a healthy, socially fit organization is a good idea and 2) educate, and even perhaps discover, the leaders who are especially skilled at managing this kind of culture change. Jon Clifton suggests the following: Establish a buddy system, increase face time, jam constantly, don’t force it. Patel and Plowman describe ways to make it part of your work culture by adding programs and also talking about it as a value of your organization.
In the old days relationships were formed around the water cooler or in the employee cafeteria. But the Pandemic and all of its complexities created a new day for the workplace. It is highly unlikely that these easy gathering places will return in the format that some of us knew and loved. People are bringing their own lunch; they grab a bottle of water from the office fridge; they like eating lunch quickly and conveniently at their desk. In those old days, office collegiality just kind of happened; it was not planned. In these new days, planning ahead and constructing the right settings for active collegiality are important. To facilitate success, this vital work of reconstruction needs to belong to the whole and become the shared domain of individuals and the organization. We are describing a revitalized, changed culture. People’s proximity–in real time or relationship to each other–will emerge as an inviolable aspect of your culture. This intentional and renewed focus might feel forced and awkward for a while, but working those friendships will ultimately rebuild the ethos of your workplace. Take the opportunity to recreate and renew with social health and happy workers at the forefront. It will be a game changer.