If you want your top employees to remain with your company, focus on more than their job tasks. Research shows that business colleagues who become friends work more productively. They are also reluctant to change jobs and leave behind their friends.

Why Employees Hesitate to Make Work Friends

The Society of Human Resource Management reports that “having friends at work makes employees happier and more engaged.” But these days, about 53% of employees are holding back on making close connections are work, preferring to separate work and personal life. For one thing, it’s harder to have work friends because employees are often working in remote locations. They may never meet in person.

In addition, with employees cycling through jobs faster, few people expect to have a workplace friendship that lasts for decades.

Finances

And a KMPG report indicates that finances now play a role. Millennials, in particular, feel they can’t afford going out for dinner and drinks with co-​workers. And the latest research on alcohol may be negatively impacting Gen Zers in terms of spending face time with colleagues.

Technology

Workers also point out the use of increased tech tools such as video calls leads to fewer employees engaging in person. 84% of surveyed workers believe the employer should play a role in supporting work friendships. The rate is higher for remote (86%) and hybrid (93%) employees than for in-​office workers.

What are the Benefits When Business Colleagues Become Friends?

Full-​time employees say that having a close work friend provides emotional and mental health support. More employees in hybrid and remote work situations say this is important than employees who work in the office. The specific benefits of these friendships include:

• They appreciate the empathy and having a sounding board 48%
• Friends allow them to feel resilient – able to recover from setbacks 41%
• They have a lower likelihood of burnout 37%

Improved Mental Health

In addition, having work friends reduces the feeling of loneliness. Across the U.S., feelings of loneliness impact 20% of adults on a regular basis. Increasingly, loneliness is associated with depression and other mental health problems.

Workplace loneliness remains an issue too. White workers report the highest levels of feeling lonely at work: 25%. And women have much higher rates than men: 30% versus 19%.

How Can Leadership and Managers Facilitate Workplace Friendships?

For workplace friendships to develop, employers must facilitate the process. Research shows that work friends are more likely to have met in person. This means they’ve spent time in specific settings. Business colleagues have become friends in the following ways:

• At the office (39%)
• Volunteering for event arranged by employer (39%)
• In person at an employee resource group event (39%)
• During off-​site training 35%

In this context, it’s not surprising that 65% of remote workers find it difficult to create friendships with their co-workers.

In addition, younger team members such as Gen Zers need a helping hand. They expect their employers to provide opportunities to make workplace friends. This expectation is not unreasonable. Many of these employees started their career during the socially-​isolating COVID-​19 pandemic.

Are Employers Supporting a Friends-​Oriented Workplace?

Not everyone agrees that employers are on board with supporting close work friendships. Around 32% of surveyed employees agree that their company provides “an environment that encourages close work friendships.”

But only 27% completely agree that their employer develops events designed to strengthen friendships and teams. These activities might include recreational or volunteer events.

What workers would like to see most are activities such as happy hours or rooftop socials (40%). This is especially true for younger employees. More seasoned professionals would like employers to set employee resource groups with a focus on career development and networking (39%).

The Manager Connection

Because remote and hybrid workers may lack close friends in the workplace, the relationship with their manager becomes more important. With a significant percentage of employees claiming their happiness is linked to their manager or group leader, the pressure increases.

Managers must find a balance when interacting with team members. Close friendships will make it difficult for them to give honest feedback or even terminate their employment. But they do need to form a relationship.

KPMG survey designers found that about 39% of managers provide constant coaching and check-​ins. However, only 32% truly know their team members outside the context of work and regular work hours. Managers who make the extra effort have employees who are “engaged and satisfied.”

Every employee needs something different from their managers and their workplace experience. To understand employee work behavior and motivations, there is no substitute for reviewing the results of psychometric assessments.

A platform such as TeamTrait^TM allows managers to determine the best fit for an employee. When an employee is on the right team and engaging with coworkers on a project, they will develop friendships. These coworkers will move from being business colleagues to being work friends. And their engagement will increase.

Photo by Yan Krukau on Pexels.