Should You Work Hard to Make Friends at Work?
Posted December 22nd, 2015
This question tends to inspire passionate opinions from both sides. Some people believe that trying to make friends at work distracts you from your responsibilities and leads inevitably to office drama. Conversely, others believe that the workday is a lot easier to get through happily and productively if you’re surrounded by people you like and care about. It’s impossible to say which viewpoint is right or wrong, but we tend to believe that having friends at work is rarely a significant distraction and actually does a lot to spur on productivity, efficiency, collaboration, and innovation. If you’re interested in improving camaraderie in your office, try these strategies:
Create a Shared Culture
Company culture is a complex combination of mission, values, messaging, decision making, goals, and appearances. Most companies strive to establish an overarching culture, but few truly succeed. It’s worth the continued effort because organizations with an overarching culture unite all employees/teams/departments around shared objectives. Everyone might not consider each other friends, but they do consider each other to be important collaborators with common interests.
Promote Cross Pollination
Many companies inadvertently contribute to the formation of cliques by isolating teams, grouping together employees with similar experiences, and keeping lines of communication discreet. This might seem like an efficient way to do business, but it contributes inevitably to divisions within the company. You can prevent these cliques from forming by encouraging cross-group collaboration, mixing up how you assign workspaces, and encouraging (even incentivizing) communication between different branches of the company.
Get Less Formal
Office activities can often be divided into pure work or pure fun. Both are important, but instead of relying on holiday parties exclusively as your informal office gatherings, try to organize less-structured events that are still centered around work. Bringing people together to brainstorm, strategize, and discuss concerns and opportunities helps them get to know each other as people, but still in the context of work.
Facilitate Learning
There is a reason you make most of your friends when you are in school. Learning has a way of uniting people, even when the participants are older professionals. Bringing employees from disconnected parts of your company together to take on professional development opportunities promotes camaraderie while expanding the skill set of your workforce.
Use Technology
Simple logistics often prevents people from being able to meet in the same room together. Luckily, technology allows us to bridge the gap from anywhere at anytime. Instead of relying on face to face interactions alone, encourage your employees to use social networks, video conferencing, chats, intranets, and websites to keep in touch and share ideas.
Your best friend doesn’t have to be the person working next to you, but it’s worth it for both of you to get along. Even if you’re not interested in weekly outings with your coworkers, it’s a professional asset to have them on your side. Learn more about getting the most from your current and future positions by contacting the employment experts at Bayside Solutions.
