How a Work Buddy Can Improve Your Well-being and Your Workplace
Research suggests that having a good friend at work can make things better for everyone.
By Jill Suttie
I was 16 years old when I got my first “real” job at a local Jack-in-the-Box. It was not a great gig, for sure, working over a hot grill and dealing with rude, demanding customers. But I was saved from misery by my work buddies—friends who’d crack jokes, commiserate, and pitch in if I fell behind.
Since then, having a work buddy has always been important to me, which is why I’ve cultivated friendships throughout my work career. Those special friends have helped me maintain my focus and commitment to the job and increase my sense of safety and belonging. When things got rough, I had someone to confide in, get perspective from, and count on in a pinch.
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, 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. 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.
Moreover, having a work buddy can also improve workplace culture and organizational health. As Gallup Poll researcher Tom Roth 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.
That makes friendships on the job a win-win for companies and their employees.
“There’s some really robust research that friendships at work improve workplace outcomes in ways that friendships outside of work might not, like productivity, performance, likelihood of retention, engagement, cohesion on teams,” says Marisa G. Franco, professor at the University of Maryland and author of the bestselling book Platonic.
Franco points to research by BetterUp showing how much companies save when people are connected and feel like they belong. People want to work with someone who’s competent, but also friendly and warm, she says.
“It definitely benefits a workplace a lot if they can be intentional about helping people form connections,” she says. “Their employees will perform better, their teams will be more cohesive, and they’re more likely to retain people.”
The challenges of friends at work
That doesn’t mean it’s always easy to make those connections. In fact, Gallup recently reported that 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.
One potential factor making it harder to connect is proximity. More of us work remotely now (in part, a consequence of the COVID pandemic), which can decrease opportunities for casual contact between colleagues. If we aren’t bumping into each other at the water cooler or grabbing a spontaneous lunch, it might be harder to jumpstart a friendship.
Workers tend to change jobs more frequently than they used to, too, which can hurt or end a work friendship. People with temporary employment are lonelier, perhaps because they don’t have as much time to develop meaningful friendships.
But those factors don’t tell the whole story. Our own reluctance to prioritize social connection at work can also take a toll. We may worry that it’s not appropriate to make friends at work. Maybe we’ll be dinged by our employer, or maybe our friendship could cause conflicts or affect our productivity.
These concerns are not trivial. Indeed, they are part of the reason not all researchers say work friendships are beneficial. Sometimes, maintaining close relationships takes time and effort, which could mean less of each for reaching organizational goals.
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 Franco.
“It’s hard for friendship to happen in a hierarchy, because if we’re on the bottom of that hierarchy, we’re not sharing certain things about ourselves; we’re afraid of being judged,” says Franco. “If we’re at the top of the hierarchy, we may question whether that person can bring as much to our lives as we can bring to theirs; so, hierarchy can be really antithetical to friendship.”
On the other hand, she adds, it doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker.
“Don’t assume because of the title change that there’s going to be a change in your dynamic,” she says. You can always talk things through and decide how to be in relationship to these changes, potentially making it work, she adds.
It may be hard to be our true selves at work all of the time, though, she adds. A “guise of professionalism” may mean being less real or vulnerable, impinging on connection. Plus, self-disclosure can make people uncomfortable, perhaps especially in a competitive work environment.
“People [might be] afraid to share something with a colleague that can be used against them in the workplace and affect their professional success,” says Franco.
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.
“There’s a misconception sometimes that when someone’s focused on friendships, they’re not focused on their tasks. But honestly, we’re not made to be completely focused on tasks for eight hours a day,” she says. “It’s kind of impossible, and [social] breaks actually make you perform better.”
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.”
Besides, he adds, when so many of us spend a lot of time at work, it’s important to cultivate positive social connection there in order to thrive.
“The idea that I’m going to go to work and cut myself off from having some friends is unreasonable and not a good idea,” he says. “Especially if you’re a working professional, you’re not going to spend nearly as much time at home as you will with the people you work with. So, it makes sense to have friendships at work.”
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, 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.
“If you and I sat here for an hour and grabbed a coffee and shot the shit about life, I think we’d end up having some fondness and a connection,” he says.
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 that 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 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 chit-chat, where people can check in about what’s going on in their lives. Or they can divide meetings into one part business, one part communal lunch, to encourage socializing.
“When managers make an effort to create opportunities for connection, there’s a 31% difference in how connected people feel in that place,” she says. “So, it does really make a difference if management takes it upon themselves.”
Buddy programs, kindness campaigns, or happy hours can also foster more sense of connection at work, she adds. Similarly, making sure people are recognized for who they are, not just what they do—by celebrating birthdays or offering to help when employees go through hardship, for example—can build a culture of care and inclusivity. Being intentional is key.
“If you want to create connections across difference, you often have to make [activities] more structured,” she says. “Let’s say, we do board game night, and then people are on a team with people that are of a different group than them. That’s really important for connecting.”
While Friedman is less sure about companies taking the lead in encouraging work friendships, he does think it’s important at least not to thwart people’s natural inclinations to affiliate with one another.
“We ought to build community . . . [to] have a group of people who are going to support us or advocate for us in our department, or stand by our side when we need support and encourage psychological safety in our meetings,” he says.
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.
“If you’re someone that’s really afraid of the risk of getting too close, then I would suggest not being black or white about it. Perhaps we can be friends, but just at a certain level of closeness,” says Franco.
Friedman warns that being too close to a coworker might cloud our judgment, just as being too distant from them can. It’s best to find a happy medium, he 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.”