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Benefiting from Friends at Work
Co-workers who are friends become more productive, but that effect turns negative when friends are separated into different work areas, according to a new study. HR leaders need to find a balance between friendship and productivity.
Good friends in the same department at work often make each other better workers. But friends who work in different areas of the same company may have a negative effect on productivity, according to a new study of friendship in the workplace. The research uncovered this connection between friendship and productivity was initiated by Jessica Methot as she worked on her doctorate in management at the University of Florida. She says she began researching the topic after watching co-workers in her own business ventures become friends. "My husband and I used to own several restaurants, and we started seeing our employees develop relationships, so that's where [the search for a possible link to productivity] came from," she says. Other current studies on the topic offered a muddled picture of the connection, at best, she says. "Some studies said [working with friends] was great, but others said, 'Don't bring that into the workplace,' " she says. "I wanted to look at the underlying mechanisms [between friendship and productivity] in terms of performance." One such report -- a recent Randstad Work Watch survey of 1,017 employed adults -- finds that about seven in 10 (69 percent) say the greatest benefit of workplace friendships is increased teamwork, while 50 percent say increased knowledge sharing and open communication. As for productivity and/or performance, however, only 30 percent see an increase because of friendship, according to the Atlanta-based HR services company. Methot says she was initially "surprised" with her study findings of the connection, although on reflection it made sense "because, if you become [friends] or develop a relationship that can help you do your job, that's unbelievably good for performance. People are also much more likely to trust work information they get from friends. And we wouldn't want to embarrass ourselves and show that we didn't know something by asking a stranger, compared to a friend." But, she cautions, friendships aren't always a good thing. "Although previous research has suggested workplace friendships are positive because they raise employees' morale, we found a dark side to these relationships," she says. "When friendships involve someone who works outside your department or performs different kinds of tasks and is not able to help you with your job, they are more of a distraction." Methot surveyed 182 employees at nine service-industry companies. She chose that industry, instead of, for example, call-center employees, because of the interdependent nature of the work done in retail shops and restaurants, she says. Three of the companies were retailers that sell clothing for men and women, and the other six were restaurants. Of them, the smallest company had seven employees, the largest had 60. For the study, she listed the names of every company employee on a survey, and each employee would then go through the list and say whether they had a work relationship, whether they were friends with that person, if they feel they could confide in the person and if they saw them outside the office. The resulting "maps" that came as a result of the surveys provided a visual depiction of the networks that Methot says can be very beneficial to companies, especially considering the constraints of the current economy. "With the bad economy, a lot of managers have less time to give to their employees right now," she says. "These peer relationships they can have with co-workers can come in handy when mangers don't have the time to give to them." Rom Brafman, a psychologist and author of the book Click: The Magic of Instant Connections, says a "social gravitational force" pulls people to spend time with their friends, and instead of fighting against that force, HR leaders would do well to make the most of it. "Managers should attempt to place friends on the same team," he advises. "And in cases when friends' specializations prevent them from working together, try to find an interdepartmental project that they can work on together, especially one requiring creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. "That's because, when we're around friends," he says, "we're more apt to allow ourselves to feed off of each other's energy and be open to new possibilities." Having a strong network of friends can also help a company when it comes time to fill positions, Methot adds. "Referrals are a very common and inexpensive way for employers to hire people because they don't have to go through the entire recruitment and selection process," she says. But, experts caution, too much reliance on employee referrals could be dangerous. "To shortcut the selection process implies the judgment of current employees regarding the abilities and competence of the referrals is more valid than the organization's formal selection process," says Thomas Stone, a professor of human resource management at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla. "Additionally, well-validated personality tests aid in screening out" those who wouldn't fit a specific work position. Methot says friendships at work are something that should be fostered by HR leaders, but only to a certain point. "Because these relationships can be so helpful, it makes sense to try and build them at work, but we can also see a challenge with work/life balance in that it blurs the boundary between work and home," she says. To wit, more than one-third (37 percent) of the respondents in the Randstad survey felt that it is "smart to keep personal and professional lives separate." And Phillip Wilson, president of the Labor Relations Institute in Broken Arrow, Okla., says that, while workplace friendships can be good, they are not the primary reason for productivity in the workplace. "Remember that people leave bosses, not co-workers or companies. The No. 1 key to a positive and productive workplace is the quality of front-line leaders," he says. "Get this wrong and a whole team of best friends won't accomplish anything. But a good leader can get a team of people who don't like each other to accomplish great things."
May 7, 2010 Copyright 2010© LRP Publications |
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