How making friends at work enhances your life and the workplace

Have you ever wondered if your co-workers could be more than just colleagues? Could they be your friends, or even something more?

A few days ago, I hosted my friend Kay who was visiting Toronto from Jamaica, at the most joyous dinner with her daughter and my family. We have been friends since 1985. We met at work in 1985, and our friendship has remained strong and precious to us both.

June was my first boss. We met in 1978 when I started my first job out of university. We immediately clicked and became best friends. She blessed me so much when she asked me to be the godmother of her first child. Even though she passed many years ago, I think of her every day, treasuring her love and friendship.

Bob was my boss at my second job after Business School. We became friends and are still friends to this day.

I was Marjorie’s boss, Camille’s boss, Sharon’s boss, Ulla’s boss. We are friends and remain so to this day.

And many of my clients have become dear friends.

As I take this inventory of friends, I realize how important friendship at work has been to me. We spend a lot of time at work, perhaps 60 or 70% of our waking day, so having friends at work is critical to my enjoyment of my daily life. Typically, an organization will attract people of like mind and values. And a focused, purpose-driven organization will also attract people who deeply share the mission and purpose of the organization. This will result in the hours of the day being filled with camaraderie and joy of shared challenges, successes and little moments of joy and laughter.

It’s natural that I would like the people I work with, and want to spend time with them outside the bounds of the workplace.

According to research from Gallup:

“Having best friends at work is key to employee engagement and job success. Gallup data indicate that having a best friend at work is strongly linked to business outcomes, including profitability, safety, inventory control and retention.”

Employees who have a best friend at work are significantly more likely to:

• engage customers and internal partners
• get more done in less time
• support a safe workplace with fewer accidents and reliability concerns
• innovate and share ideas
• have fun while at work

What a value proposition to organizations!

There are compelling benefits for individuals as well. Loneliness is now at epidemic proportions. Gallup reports that more than 300 million people globally don’t have a single friend, and that only 2 out of 10 have a best friend at work. With so much of our time spent at work, wouldn’t the workplace be a great venue to find and build friendships?

However, in some quarters, the idea of friends at work is frowned upon, and maybe even discouraged: work and friendship should be separate. And there are some good reasons for this:

• Friendship may compromise your work as a leader. For example, how do you fire your friend?
• How do you avoid giving your friends special treatment or the perception that you are doing so?
• How do you manage the expectations of friends to have their backs, even if they are in the wrong?

And yet, I will continue to advocate for having friends at work. Here are a few ideas about how to do so successfully:

1. Be a good friend – someone who is trusting and trusted, who cares genuinely for the welfare of all. Know that you will sometimes have to make tough decisions but that you do so from a place of caring and support.
2. Be aware of your biases and how these might play out or be seen by others in terms of preferential treatment.
3. Respect the wishes of others – not everyone wants to be your friend. So don’t force it.

But mostly, if you don’t feel comfortable having friends at work, then don’t. Just make sure to be a caring, compassionate leader, focused on helping your team develop and achieve their best. Hmmm … isn’t that what a good friend would do?