How a Work Buddy Can Improve Your Well-Being and Your Workplace

Researchers who study organizational health and friendships agree that having a work buddy is a plus, helping employees and their workplaces function better.

“Everything you do at work will be better when people get along well with each other than when they don’t,” says organizational scholar Stephen Friedman, of York University in Canada. “The things that are difficult become just a little bit easier.” 

Why Work Friends Matter
Workplace buddies can function like other friendships, helping us feel emotionally supported when we need it, according to research in the journal Friendship and Social Interaction. 

They can provide instrumental assistance, too, like offering to cover our shift if we’re out sick or taking on some tasks when we’re overwhelmed. And since we spend so much of our lives at work, having friends on the job can help stave off loneliness, contributing to our health and well-being over time.

As Gallup Poll researcher Tom Rath wrote in his book, Vital Friends: The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without, people who have a best friend at work are seven times more likely to have high worker engagement. That higher engagement, in turn, has been tied to all kinds of benefits to the workplace, including less absenteeism, fewer safety issues, longer retention, productivity, and the ability to manage challenges on the job, according to a study from Gallup.

The Challenges of Friends at Work
That doesn’t mean it’s always easy to make those connections. In fact, according to research from Gallup, one in five employees worldwide feel lonely at work, and fewer people say they have a close friend on the job, especially among younger adults.

According to research published in the journal Academy of Management Review, not all work friendships are beneficial. Sometimes, maintaining close relationships takes time and effort, which could mean less of each for reaching organizational goals, research in the journal Personnel Psychology suggests.

Conflicts between friends at work might also spill out into the workplace. For example, what if you are promoted over your friend — or vice versa? Could that create bad feelings between you and affect your work and your friendship? Quite possibly, says Marisa G. Franco, professor at the University of Maryland and author of the bestselling book Platonic.

Workplace friendships can sometimes become insular, as we tend to form bonds with people who are like us in some way — for example, of the same race, ethnicity, generation, gender, etc. If work groups don’t feel welcome to everyone, it could make people feel like they don’t belong. That could create problems, says Franco.

Do Benefits Outweigh the Problems?
Still, these potential issues shouldn’t stop us from having friends at work, says Franco. There are ways to connect across differences, manage emotional conflicts, and do our jobs well while having friends — to everyone’s benefit.

Friedman agrees, saying that many reasons people give for forgoing work friendships are misguided.

“There is no relationship with another human, friendly or otherwise, that doesn’t contain risks,” he says. “It’s the same thing with workplaces. Like anything in life, [work] friendships have risks but can bring great benefit when they work out.”

How to Foster Friends on the Job
Of course, no one can insist you make a friend at work. But if we want our workplaces to be a caring, compassionate, and productive place to be, fostering positive connection on the job may help.

To do that, Friedman suggests taking the initiative and making an effort to put yourself out there. If you can become more approachable and friendly, and “get your face out of your phone and notice the people around you,” it will improve your chances, he says.

Even in cases where companies have a lot of remote workers and less in-person contact, you can still build intimacy online, says Friedman. You just need to get a bit more creative.

Franco, who often works with companies to help build a sense of belonging, suggests making friends across differences by assuming people like you (more than you might think) and keeping an open mind. She says:

“There’s this term in the research called ‘habitual open-mindedness’ where you remind yourself that, just from looking at someone, you don’t know anything about them, and you can still give them space to unfold in their identity in front of you. That allows you to approach people who might not look like the typical friends that you have.”

Organizations have a role to play in fostering workplace friendships and belonging, too, says Franco. She points to research published in Harvard Business Review, suggesting that leaving it up to individuals alone is not enough to stave off loneliness, and that leaders can foster positive connection at work in several ways. For example, they can start work meetings with chitchat, where people can check in about what’s going on in their lives. 

“When managers make an effort to create opportunities for connection, there’s a 31 percent difference in how connected people feel in that place,” she says. “So, it does really make a difference if management takes it upon themselves.”

Both Friedman and Franco say people don’t necessarily need to be best friends at work, though. Just having a nice, friendly connection may be good enough.

It’s best to find a happy medium, Friedman says — someone you’re friendly with and maybe hang out with a little after work, rather than someone who’s your bosom buddy. In that way, you can reap the benefits of having a work friend and, hopefully, avoid any pitfalls.

“When we’re friendly with people at work, we collaborate better, we solve problems better, we’re more forgiving of each other, we’re kinder to each other,” he says. “I think we need lots more of that everywhere.”

This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Click here to read the original article.