Last week, I had a chance to celebrate my upcoming retirement with work friends and colleagues. As I look back on my career, I’ve been thinking a lot about the value of work friendships.
I’ve worked in a lot of roles with many different people over the years. When I look back, the most memorable accomplishments were with teams I felt a strong social connection with. Teams where we worked hard but took the time to get to know each other and have fun together.
Years ago, socializing on the job was discouraged by old-school bosses who thought fun in the workplace got in the way of getting the work done. I’d like to think times have changed, although a piece I wrote about ways to have fun at work is consistently the most popular post on my personal blog. Maybe things haven’t really changed that much.
We All Need Work Friends
Smart companies are realizing that strong work relationships have a positive impact on workplace culture and wellbeing. What’s more, fostering those strong relationships makes business sense.
A few years ago, a new question popped up on our annual employee engagement survey. “Do you have a best friend at work?” I wasn’t quite sure how to interpret the question and it turned out I wasn’t the only one. When our team met to debrief our results, we had a lengthy discussion about that question and there were many different interpretations.
Ultimately, we decided a best friend at work is someone you trust completely. It’s a person you can talk to, confide in, and vent your frustrations to when needed. In short, it’s someone who has your back. Whether you like the wording of the question or not, we all need someone at work to play that role for us.
Gallup has been asking the best friend at work question on employee engagement surveys for over 30 years. Over time, they have seen a strong link between individuals who say they have a best friend at work and performance. Positive scores on the best friend at work question are linked to key business outcomes like profitability, safety, innovation and employee retention.
It’s clear there’s value in supporting and encouraging work friendships.
Tips For Building Good Work Friendships
Like any good relationship, work connections don’t just happen. They take work. Here are some ideas on how to build strong work relationships that have worked for me over the years:
- Take an interest in your co-workers as people. Ask them about their kids, pets, and hobbies. Talk to them about their life experiences and seek to learn from them.
- Get involved with initiatives that will bring you in contact with different groups of people. Involvement with social committees, ERGs (employee resource groups), industry groups and charity events is an excellent way to build work friendships.
- Make time to have lunch or coffee with co-workers. It’s easy to let this slip when you get busy, so you need to make it a priority or it won’t happen.
- Show appreciation. Send a personal note to say thank you or just let someone know how much you value them. When things go well, be the first to acknowledge the work of other people and the role they play in the team’s success. On the flip side, avoid blaming and pointing fingers when things go wrong.
- Seek common ground. No matter how great your work relationships are, you won’t always agree. Sometimes you just need to set aside your differences, find common ground, and move on.
- Finally, don’t burn your bridges. Work relationships aren’t always rosy. It may be tempting to give that boss or co-worker a piece of your mind on the way out the door, but you never know where that person might turn up again in the future. It’s not worth the brief moment of satisfaction you get from unloading on them.
It’s true that we spend more time with our co-workers than our families. Work is so much more pleasant when we open up and build strong work relationships.
Tell me what you think. How important are work friendships in your line of work? Drop me a comment below and let me know.
Learn more about me in my bio and on my personal blog at BoomerEcoCrusader.com. You can also find me on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.