Pal it up:
Having friends at work can pay off personally, professionally
One of the casualties of the work-from-home experience, according to some, is not having the chance to build new friendships at the workplace. After all, building strong relationships at work can not only make your employment experience more enjoyable, but it can also help foster a collaborative and supportive environment on the job. But for someone either new to a company or headed back to the office, making friends can be rough. And although it isn’t essential, most job experts agree that having a good relationship with others can benefit today’s employees, both personally and professionally.
“People enjoy going to work more when they enjoy the people they work with, it’s as simple as that, but it’s definitely not a universal feeling. There are people who are great employees who just come to work, barely offer up a greeting to others, do their jobs and then head home,” says Foster Jenkins, a team-building consultant in Austin, Texas. “People can get intimidated when they feel like they have to make friends at work — how many horror stories do we hear about team-building exercises — but if they allow themselves to let their guard down, if they can be open to the idea that having friends at work can be a good thing, they’ll probably find that they’re creating new relationships without even realizing it.”
A better atmosphere
A recent Gallup study indicated that having friends at work directly correlated with employee success. Friends at work give employees something to look forward to each morning but can also have a direct impact on productivity, employee retention and establishing a positive, welcoming company culture. All of those things often take place at work without being noticed. “Having friends at work creates a great atmosphere but you don’t really think about the touchy-feely friend stuff so much until you don’t have it anymore,” he says. “Then you miss it.”
Wynn Peterson recently retired after working the last 17 years in the marketing arm of a major retail chain. She says the retirement part was easy to get used to. “The sleeping in, the time I spend hanging out with my grandbabies, the time I spend gardening, the time I spend just sitting around and watching old movies — that’s all good,” says the 61-year-old resident of Lincolnshire, Illinois. “But I really miss the day-to-day BS-ing with my friends at work. And I should qualify that. I mean our conversations weren’t all about mundane, stupid stuff; we had some real heartto-heart conversations as well. And I miss the stupid talks about reality shows and the really deep conversations about marriage and children a lot more than I thought I would.”
Peterson says she was one of the oldest members of her department so it’s not like she’ll be able to regularly lunch with some of her former coworkers any time soon. “It would be great if you could retire in groups, like five or six people at a time who worked together,” she says. “Then we could go have breakfast or coffee on a regular schedule. I still have drinks with some folks I worked with but we have to squeeze everything in. They still work and still raise their families. I’ve got nothing but time these days. Plus, my kids are grown and my husband probably has five or six more years until he retires so I’m always looking for things to do.”
New connections
Ricardo Frank, a retired firefighter who moved from Chicago to Las Vegas in 2021, says he misses the people he used to work with but is working on ways to replace that day-to-day camaraderie. “I began working in the casinos in security but that was pretty isolated so I brushed off the bartender’s license, took a few classes and ended up getting a job at one of the resort casinos several miles from the strip,” he says. “And sure, I have some regular customers who come to the bar and love talking, but I have to say, I love working with other members of the staff there — and they’re 21 to 70. There’s just something about having friends at work — it makes the time fly by and it’s always good for laughs.”
Jenkins agrees. “We can put all the other positive benefits of having friends at work in the background if we’re having a good time where we earn our money,” he says. “Fun still counts when we’re on the job, maybe more than ever.”