A friend from work gave me this avocado vase when I left my last role. I like to think of this tree as the visual representation of our continuing friendship after working together! [inset: the starting pit!]

Organizational Effectiveness: Why you need a best friend at work and how to find one

It’s hard enough to make friends as an adult, let alone, while navigating the workplace (particularly one that’s remote or hybrid!). Here’s why it matters and how to find your next work BFF.

According to the latest research from Gallup, 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

Given these results, it’s no wonder organizations are motivated to create the conditions for friendships to thrive. And, given the loneliness epidemic articulated by the US Surgeon General in 2023, employees equally want the opportunity to expand their social circles.

Photo by Calum Lewis on Unsplash

Let’s start with the ingredients for friendship. A number of studies have been done on this topic, and three elements stand out. To develop a friendship, you need:

• Proximity. You need to be in the same ‘zone’ or space as another person. This doesn’t have to be a physical space, but a place to gather.
• Repeated, Casual Interactions. Trust and familiarity build over time. (One study says you need 200 hours to build a friendship, and more to maintain it!) Tactically, this means that networking events where you encounter many people once might be less effective than a regular book club, with the same participants over multiple sessions.
• Authenticity. True friendship requires vulnerability and going deeper than “How’s it going?” at the start of a conference call.

As a leader, here’s how you can amplify these key ingredients for friendship:

• Proximity. Create optional-attendance* recurring spaces for people to gather for non-work reasons. This could be a physical conference room with fruit and veggies every Tuesday afternoon, but it could also be a non-work-related Slack channel for fun, banter, or centered around an interest or theme (pets, travel, food). Better yet (especially if you don’t want to be the “party planner” — enable specific, frictionless budgets that all employees can tap into to create spaces of their own. 1:1 coffee, snacks for a game night at the office. Your role is to eliminate as many barriers as possible in order to drive organic connection.
• Repeated, Casual Interactions. Identify a meaningful time period where you’re personally committed creating and engaging in this space on an ongoing basis (and recruit some peers to join you). It takes time to build up a habit and a cultural norm of casual interactions. Be reasonable with your expectations — it’s likely only 10–20% of folks will find the idea/space you’ve created to be interesting, most will not. Don’t be discouraged, and think about other spaces that might be interesting and inclusive of those other folks.
• Authenticity. Build community around people’s true interests. When people are genuinely excited about a topic — whether it’s D&D, gardening, or vintage cars, they’re more comfortable bringing their full spectrum of emotions into the space.

*it’s worth saying out loud, required attendance (aka forced fun) or presence generally doesn’t put folks in the mood to make friends!

As an employee, here are some parallel tips to find that next work friend:

• Proximity. Show up. If there are things happening in the workplace that interest you, show up, even if you don’t know anyone else planning to go. (isn’t that partially the point?)! If you don’t see anything happening which is interesting to you, take the lead on creating a space or event that’s compelling to you and others.
• Repeated, Casual Interactions. KEEP showing up if there’s an opportunity to! If it’s a one-time thing, keep the momentum going by making the first move and asking a new potential friend — “hey, it was fun chatting. Want to grab lunch next week?” Studies have shown that we tend to underestimate how much another person liked us (the “liking gap”) — so believing that you are liked by the other person (fight that imposter syndrome and lean in!) to help you make that first move.
• Authenticity. Vulnerability at work can be a tricky thing. Start small (eg “I’m struggling with xx at work/home, how would you approach it?”), if you’re still testing out the friendship. Vulnerability can also look like offering support: “hey, I was thinking about you when I heard about [xx in the news]. How are you doing?” While hard to put yourself out there, when you can be vulnerable with others, they are more likely to open up about their vulnerabilities to you — but again, someone has to make the first move.

Making friends as an adult is hard. Making friends at work as an adult is even harder. But, friendships add a layer of richness to the work environment that honestly, makes it a whole lot better.

How else have you found success in making friends in the workplace?