Should HR Be Responsible for Facilitating Friendships
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
There was an article on HR Brew recently titled “Most workers don’t have a best friend at work.” The article is a good read worth checking out. It’s been well documented that having friends at work is a component of employee engagement. According to Gallup, having friends at work can provide support and improve wellbeing. And on the business side, there’s a link between workers with friends and profitability, safety, and inventory control.
However, I’m having a bit of a challenge with the HR Brew article from the recommendation that HR needs to get involved.
I understand that for employees to make friends at work, the culture and work environment needs to have high levels of psychological safety. But HR doesn’t “own” psychological safety. Senior leadership, managers, and frankly everyone needs to be an active participant in creating a psychologically safe environment.
I’m also a bit unsure about telling employees that the company is trying to be a place where people are or can be friends. I remember reading a quote in The Wall Street Journal from an employee who said, “I don’t want to put in an eight, nine, 10 hour day and then go out and have a beer with a coworker – only to talk about work some more.” Honestly, there’s a lot of truth in that. It’s possible to be nice and friendly with your coworkers without becoming friends and hanging out together.
Friendships should not be a work requirement. Yes, organizations need to create safe and pleasant work environments. And if people want to be friends – great. But if someone doesn’t want a birthday cake in the breakroom or to go to happy hour after work, that should be fine too. Forcing “friendships” creates the possibility the workplace will become cliquish and that’s the exact opposite of what you’re trying to do.
Individuals need to learn how to manage relationships. If for some reason, a group of friends have a falling out … they need to figure out how to deal with it. I’m not saying don’t make friends at work, so you never have to deal with conflict. But department managers and HR should not have to mediate fights between friends. There are plenty of times when we do need to mediate conflict, but being friends with someone means owning the responsibility of being able to work through differences.
Stress the importance of positive working relationships. Where I do see HR and management playing a key role is in demonstrating the value of positive working relationships. That includes being able to disagree and still respect each other. It also includes forgiveness, as in one person having to apologize to another for something they said or did or didn’t do.
Maybe instead of saying that HR is responsible for facilitating friendships, it makes sense to say that HR and management are responsible for encouraging positive working relationships. And if friendships come from that … great. I think we know they will.
There will always be people who for whatever the reason do not want to cross over into the friendship category. That’s okay. Organizations need to be fine with it and let those employees know it’s fine. Again, not wanting to be besties with coworkers is not the same as being mean or grouchy toward them. And I haven’t mentioned it so far but let us not forget that everyone needs to get their work done – regardless of friendship status. If we’re going to be a culture that allows people to bring their authentic selves to work, that includes not forcing people to become friends.
Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Boston, MA
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