The pros and cons of having work friends
Work friends can be great. Collaborating with people you really like helps improve morale and can even reduce absenteeism . Friends tend to understand each other and communicate well, and the frustrations and shortfalls that happen at every company are more likely to be managed well when everyone is on the same team. Whether your employees were friends before they got their jobs or they met on the job and hit it off, you stand to gain quite a bit when friends work together.
There’s a downside to friends at work. The unmanaged personal relationship your employees have outside of the workplace can turn sour in a single day, leaving you with an unusually bitter workplace rivalry or outright hostility. Even if this doesn’t happen, there’s always the danger that personal friends will appear to other employees to be unfairly favoring each other, which gets to be a real issue when one or both of them are high performers who will naturally get bonuses and promotions, regardless of their personal connections.
Avoiding the appearance of favoritism
Employers reward their workers in basically two ways: regular pay and benefits, and promotions or favorable transfers. There’s almost always some discretion in who gets these perks and in what amount, so a known, friendly relationship can make it look like a well-rewarded employee is getting special treatment. This devastates morale, and it needs to be avoided.
You can fight the appearance of favoritism in pay and benefits by offering the same package to everybody. If you use bonuses and other perks to encourage high performance, make sure your policies for giving those out are very well-defined and understood by all. While favoritism can still operate inside an objective rating system, it helps to fight the appearance of unfairness.
Workplace whispers are inevitable when a promotion goes to someone known to be friendly with management. In some cases, this isn’t an issue because of the respect the promoted employee enjoys and the transparency of the promotions policy. At times, however, there’s nothing to be done about office gossip except to focus on keeping a professional environment and insisting on respect between all employees.
Managing employees who are friends
Friendly relationships between employees at the same level are rarely a cause for concern, though it’s generally good to know what’s going on. As long as they’re good friends, your workers should be able to do their jobs without issue, and their positive relationship can help uplift others around them. If the two have a falling out, however, unexpected stress can suddenly appear at work.
If this happens, the odds are you’ll only notice it when it becomes an issue affecting job performance. The end of a work friendship could lead to a falling off of productivity, general hostility and even open conflict. If anything happens that you have to take official notice of, it’s a good idea to follow your company’s written discipline policy. Acknowledge the personal situation causing the problem, but focus your counseling on the way it affects the workplace rather than on the private relationship of your employees.
It is possible that the falling out is only temporary, as when two otherwise friendly employees have a short-lived argument but make up later. In this case, management should almost always focus on making the work friends aware of how their personal problems are negatively affecting their performance and the work environment. If the dispute seems to be permanent, or if it’s likely to keep getting in the way going forward, think about a reassignment of one or both employees.
When one of the work friends is a supervisor
A new wrinkle appears when work friends are at different levels of authority, especially in a supervisor/subordinate role. Asymmetrical work friendships take special attention and planning to manage well.
If two or more employees who are known to be friends are working apart from each other, there probably isn’t anything you need to worry about. A supervisor who’s friends with a less senior employee not in their chain of command presents very few direct issues, and for all intents and purposes, they might as well be equal peers.
A problem arises when the friends are in a hierarchy together. A worker who’s close friends with a direct supervisor automatically creates the appearance of unfairness for other employees, and real work has to be done to fight it. Talk to your supervisor about the relationship, respectfully making your concerns known. Supervisors qualified to lead teams should immediately understand why you’d be concerned about this issue, and a good resolution is to restate the importance of impartiality and professionalism, especially in front of other subordinate workers.
Should you encourage employees to be friends at work?
Work friends are not all danger and discipline. For the vast majority of friends at work, the relationship is broadly positive and has a good effect on the office culture. A refer-a-friend program, for example, can encourage current employees to bring in new hires who effectively arrive on day one with a partial support network in place and who typically bring a positive attitude toward at least one coworker. Finding new friends at work can also be a sign of an employee adjusting well to their new job environment, which is always nice to see.
Workplace friendships have a material benefit that goes beyond good feelings. Friends can usually count on each other and back up each others’ shortcomings. Two employees who are good friends might wind up working more productively than the two of them individually ever could. While there will always be human relations issues revolving around workplace friendships, on balance, the situation brings much more good than harm for the vast majority of employers.
FAQ
Is it unprofessional to have friends at work?
As long as the relationship doesn’t interfere with expected conduct, especially around other employees, friends at work are not doing anything wrong or frowned upon.
How can you set boundaries with work friends?
Healthy boundaries are important for any successful relationship, and work friendships are no exception. Almost any personal entanglements at work can generally be managed with intelligence, foresight and honest communication before the relationship causes trouble. As a rule, most people can accept reasonable boundaries if a manager raises the situation with respect and sensitivity, the matter is openly discussed, and the meeting ends with everyone feeling that their issues have been heard and understood. This should be followed by at least some monitoring and corrective action if needed.
Can a boss tell employees not to be friends?
The National Labor Relations Act sets certain limits to how far an employer can pry into employees’ private lives. Labor issues can get extremely complicated in a hurry, so whenever you’re in doubt, it’s a good idea to consult with a qualified labor law attorney. Speak with your company’s lawyer before setting a policy or taking actions that can interfere with workers’ personal relationships or violate their right to privacy.
Should you keep work friendships secret?
Keeping personal relationships discreet at work solves a lot of problems, especially with how other employees view their coworkers and whether they think they’re being treated fairly and equally. This approach can backfire, however, if the secret relationship comes out or if innocent employees feel they have to be deceptive or face negative consequences from management. As a rule, a hands-off approach for work friends works best when everybody can keep up the required level of performance and professionalism, while respectful corrective action may be needed if an issue blows up at work. Secrecy does not typically work over the long term.
