Fostering Friendships at Work Can Increase Efficiency, Employee Engagement and Business Revenue  

When it comes to employee engagement and office productivity, co-workers that build relationships and friendships with business partners and team members are happier, more productive, and less likely to seek employment elsewhere. A study by economists at the University of Warwick found that unhappy workers were 10% less productive, wasting valuable time, while happiness led to a 12% spike in productivity.

“We find that human happiness has large and positive causal effects on productivity. Positive emotions appear to invigorate human beings,” according to the research team. So, what makes for happy employees, which then leads to better employee engagement? One important element is this:

The relationship that an employee has with his or her coworkers makes a significant difference between being happy and unhappy. 

Strong Social Bonds Bolster Employee Engagement

According to a recent report by Globoforce titled “The Effect of Work Relationships on Organizational Culture and Commitment,” employees are more likely to be engaged and happy at work when they have quality relationships with their co-workers.  In addition, Gallup’s State of the American Workplace Report found benefits for strong social connections in the office, including: a boost in productivity, the ability to make employees more passionate about their jobs, and employees were less likely to quit.

Provost and Professor of Management at the University of Kentucky, Christine M. Riordan, believes that “camaraderie” is essential for both male and female employees when it comes to being happy at work. She led a study, published in the 1990’s in the Journal of Business Psychology, that discovered it only took the “opportunity” for someone to develop a friendship in order to increase both job satisfaction and organizational effectiveness.

And in a recent Harvard Business review blog titled “We All Need Friends At Work” Riordan discussed the great amount of evidence that suggests office friendships can serve as a remedy for disengagement and dissatisfaction at the office.  In particular, the relationships that Riordan says are “the good old-fashioned friendships created when we chit-chat, hang out, joke, and have fun with co-workers” that really create such a great and positive impact on employee engagement.

So What Does this Mean for a Job-Seeker?

It comes down to this: regardless of the reason you are searching for a job, when evaluating a potential career opportunity with a company, you really want to take into consideration the people with whom you will work.

A little background and perspective on this: there are reports and articles that say that employee tenure is not what it used to be. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that millennials (young adults born between 1976 and 2001) currently make up 36 percent of the United State’s workforce. That number is expected to grow to 46 percent by 2020.

And a recent survey, “Multiple Generations @ Work,” states that 91 percent of millennials expect to stay less than three years at a job, which would mean they would be working at 15 – 20 jobs throughout a career span. However, even if you believe that you won’t stay at a company long, the truth is that if you want to achieve success, you will need to be productive — and to be productive, you’ll want a positive relationship with your colleagues.

Conversely, if you think about a workplace where you would be content to stay for a long time, that would (logically) be somewhere that makes you the happiest. So, as a job seeker, you should evaluate every opportunity with that in mind.  Therefore, during the interview process, get to know the personalities of the people with whom you will be working, as best as you can. Do your research on the company culture, and research the people who work at there as well. Social media will help you tremendously in this aspect.

So What Does This Mean for an Employer?

It is true that you cannot force people to get along. But, you can and want to encourage positive relationships among teams and co-workers. There are many ways to accomplish this:

• • • Sponsor an employee lunch.
    • Coordinate a pot-luck lunch.
    • Encourage your people to eat together and talk, in general.
    • Encourage teams and departments to gather in same location for lunch on a regular basis.
    • Bring donuts in the morning, and give a fifteen-minute break for employees to chat.
    • Sponsor an employee event.
    • Sponsor some kind of game.
    • Sponsor an office Olympics.
    • Conduct team building exercises on a regular basis.
    • Recognize workers who are team players. 

Promoting Partnership + Praise = Company Success

You can do any of the aforementioned ideas, but the final ingredient really comes down to encouraging positive communication. A weekly or bi-weekly touch base meeting can be effective towards this aim. And  no matter what you do to encourage communication among your people — always, always, develop  teamwork any way that you can. In short, promote a culture that praises people for working together.

There is a multitude of ways to bring people together.  The most important thing is to keep in mind that it starts at the top: leaders are guides, and set an example. So if you want the leaders in your organization to encourage positive relationships amongst employees, you’ll want leaders who exude positivity and who show appreciation for all employees.

The opposite of this?  Negative comments and gossip hurt any relationship, so you will want leaders who  discourage this type of behavior. Benjamin Franklin said, “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”

Also, while you want leaders to praise the efforts of the team, there are also times when there are difficult situations or problems that need to be addressed. Thus, you need leaders who can resolve problems and perhaps “put out fires” quickly, clearly, and directly through strong communication.

Teamwork and Respect Give a Business an Advantage

Any relationship that is positive, from top to bottom, is the result of mutual respect. So set a tone in your company culture that revolves around the respect of everyone, and see how friendships blossom.

As an employer, it pays dividends to have happy employees.  Just think: employee turnover will decrease and reduce your cost of recruiting new talent – not to mention that your happy and productive employees will want to work with you to raise your bottom line!