Making the right work friends can improve your work life

Work buddies are like school friends: Fall into the wrong crowd, and your path can swerve southward. Becoming besties with a tired-and-over-it manager might tank your attitude, while friendship with the head of the company volunteer group might socially engage you.

“Some friendships are very positive in terms of performance, motivation and loyalty to the organization,” said Hilla Dotan, a professor of organizational behavior at Tel-Aviv University’s Coller School of Management.

Now that in-person time is returning for many of us, it’s a good time to assess your work relationships and how they might help or hurt your career — and your emotional well-being. Dotan traced the types of friendships and their pitfalls:

Trust friends

Think of these as realdear friends, both personally and professionally beneficial. “These start because co-workers trust each other professionally, and that leads to a very trusting relationship on a personal level,” Dotan said. Expect increased workplace happiness, satisfaction, performance, good citizenship and team commitment.

Instrumental friends

Social climbing, at work. “This is befriending someone who you think could advantage you,” Dotan said. “Thinking about friendships strategically is always kind of dangerous.” Does the “friend” courting you for your contacts really care about you? No. And these friends are also not building a true social community at work.

Sanity check friends

“Someone to go to for advice,” Dotan said. “Like, ‘I think my boss is out of line. What do you think?’ ” These friendships are strong and cognitively based, and can boost job satisfaction, as long as the vibe is upbeat.

Missing piece friends

The parent or son you never had. “These are people who form friendships that satisfy a missing role in their life,” Dotan said. This explains friendships between very old and young, which is unusual elsewhere. These relationships will keep you engaged at work and enmeshed in your team, and can be personally fulfilling, but beware that these friendships can sometimes trump the job, and decrease your overall commitment to the organization.

Proximity friends

You’re friends because you’re both there. These are the weakest relationships, based on happenstance rather than you, but as you’d expect, smiles from coworkers are better than nothing.

“I suggest that people really think about friendships carefully, and remember that not all are good for you,” Dotan said. “Outside work, we may go with our intuition, but at work, we need to be more aware of the effects of these friendships, and make sure that a friendship is good for you personally and professionally, because they can really impact your career.”