As soon as you start a new position, or even before you start, scan the environment to see who your potential friends could be. A friend is a colleague who does not compete with you, can support you within the workplace, and who preferably is at the same or similar level as you. You will recognize a friend from those who are friendly to you - it may be the first person who makes you feel at home, or that you belong in the organization, and someone who makes you comfortable as a new employee. He or she is someone you trust. Trust may develop from the sharing of personal information or through someone who is attuned to your mood or picks up on your uncertainty in a situation and seeks to elevate your mood or to help. A friend is also someone who will step forward and volunteer organizational information or otherwise take time to help you when it does not benefit them to do so.
Having at least one good friend at work gives you a foundation to build other relationships, as the friend will introduce you to others and help you integrate into other social and professional groups. A friend can let you in on informal office policies or working standards, though you may reserve judgment for yourself if your friend has a different work ethic than you do. A friend is also someone you can spend breaks and lunch with, to deal with ongoing pressures in the working day.
It is preferable if the friendship does not create a conflict of interest. If either of you can gain professionally from the relationship, be careful of boundaries, and the impression of an advantage that either of you might have from association with the other. This may be particularly pertinent in male-female friendships or when there is a supervisory element. If you report to your friend in any way, be aware of leveraging your friendship for gain, as this puts your friend in an awkward position, and your credibility and individual competence could be questioned. If others raise concerns about fairness or transparency of decisions in which you benefit, it is possible that personal friendship has created (or created an impression) of partiality in your favour. In the short-term, this may benefit you, but it may become unsustainable under closer scrutiny.
If you are the one supervising your friend, or if you have influence over decisions concerning your friend, test your decisions for whether there was possibility of general application or whether the benefit was specific to your friend. Consider whether you are making decisions with your friend in mind. You can discuss with colleagues at your level to test your decision without using names. If you recognize that you don’t wish to say no to your friend, you likely need to establish and maintain a more defined professional boundary. Although it may be of organizational benefit that you are mentoring or grooming your friend for a higher level position or responsibilities, be aware that your attentions and focus are noticed by others. At the least, if your contribution to the organization is valued and you have limited time and effort, you may trigger jealousy in others not chosen for special consideration. In the worst case, you can be accused of favouritism and of denying others access to opportunities, even of abdicating your responsibilities to others or abusing your power.
If you are in a position of authority, be wary of ‘friends’ who seek to gain career advancement through promotion, recommendation for training or other opportunities, access to information, access to contacts, etc. There are some who will seek an edge on others by befriending those in positions of power to influence decisions concerning them. These people are not your friends, and it will take an effort to maintain neutrality as their efforts will be off-putting and you may be tempted to overcompensate in order to demonstrate their lack of influence on you.
If you are in a position such as human resources, choose your friends particularly wisely. If you work in a large HR group, you can generally have friends within HR. As it is possible, develop good rapport with everyone but be aware of your privileged access to personnel information and decisions concerning staff. Recognize that you have influence in the general realm and specifically to individuals. If you maintain impartiality, you will have the respect of others. Since you deal with all staff, aim to treat everyone with appropriate consideration based on the nature of the query or merits of the case, regardless of whether you personally find them to be likeable.
Keep the tone light with colleagues in the office until you have attained a level of trust. In some ways, you can test the boundaries of friendship and professional life by seeing how you are aligned on issues such as commitment to the organization, trust of management, view of other colleagues, career aspirations, etc. It is best if you can make a friend with a similar working view and professional standing as you, so that you can provide mutual benefit to the other in a cooperative way. Friends at work can influence your attitude and motivation, as well as giving you additional reasons to continue working with an organization or particular work unit.
In brief, choose friends who respect boundaries, who challenge your thinking, who allow you to say no to them, and who are able to be friends outside of the day to day work. That is, choose friends who you have a connection to beyond the workplace, so that you can relate on a personal level beyond the office.
Be aware of blurring of boundaries in relationships. While most of the productive hours of the day are spent at work it is possible to develop close relationships with colleagues. However, be aware of professional distance with respect to emotional and relationship needs of others. Aim to be someone who is a good and sympathetic listener but doesn’t seek to take the place of family or friends that people have outside of work.
Monitor the working relationships that you have, and continue to nurture them so that they are positive and constructive, as it is all too easy for those who work closely together to develop habits in how they relate to one another. Seek to have personal relationships in which there is some give and take. If you are continually supporting someone else, you may start to resent the other person for the unequal relationship. On the other hand, if you continually unburden yourself or rely too heavily on others, they may in time disassociate themselves from you, or become less available.
Friendships in the workplace, when professional boundaries are maintained, improve employee well-being. While not everyone seeks or needs to have close friends at work, a collegial environment in which there is a sense of caring and concern for the highs and lows of others results in a more unified workforce. It can be the basis for collaborative efforts, can assist in team dynamics, can improve employee retention, can be a foundation for external networking, can promote information sharing, and can allow for greater creativity and risk-taking.
The true test of friendships may be those you choose to stay in touch with, or who choose to stay in touch with you when you or your friend leaves the workplace. In some cases there will still be a networking and professional development aspect that will motivate both parties to stay in touch, but these in time will only be sustained if there was some genuine sense of friendship and mutual interest in sustaining the personal relationship beyond the professional.
That being said, if a friendship does not last when one or the other person leaves the organization, perhaps the course of the friendship has served its purpose, and was situational in nature, due to common need within the working context. In these cases, accept both the change and the benefit from the friendly chats.
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