International Friendship Day
Why are work friendships important?
"You spend five out of seven days of your life with your colleagues, so you'd better get on with them," a relative of a Cornerstone team member was well known for saying. It's wise, that's true. And while we make light of our connection here, equally we know that a small agency can only thrive on the back of a positive culture driven by strong friendships. We are a team. We need to get each other, fill each other's gaps, and have each other's backs. That's how you, the client, experiences extraordinary outcomes. And then, did I mention, we celebrate together? (That's the best bit).
Positive cuture versus social connection
Plenty has been written and shared on creating a healthy workplace culture. Forbes says achieving a positive culture at work hinges on establishing clear values, fostering collaboration, being inclusive and setting a system of recognition and reward. But what of friendship? Is that different? We think so. This Workhuman blog raises the idea of love as an important component of psychological safety with the power to drive down absenteeism. Forbes agrees, suggesting people are yearning workplace friendships, and that "when people felt more connected to their colleagues, they reported significantly less loneliness, anxiety, burnout and stress." (Based on BetterUp data)
Tips for being a good friend at work
So if we are agreed that being a good friend at work is crucial to your and your colleagues' happiness, mental health and career fulfilment, how do we uplevel our workplace friendships? Here are a few tips from the Cornerstone team on International Friendship Day 2024.
- Make the effort to find out about people and share a little of yourself. This might mean getting to work 15 minutes early and chatting in the kitchen over a cuppa, or if you're remote, joining virtual meetings five minutes early to find out what's new before getting down to work.
- Empathise with colleagues who look like they're having a bad day and ask how you can help.
- Go to lunch with like minds. Eating at your desk in silence might seem committed but it's also isolating.
- Consider organising a regular after work activty. Form a soccer team, go bowling at the end of the month, do a virtual trivia contest across geos, take a cooking class - whatever works floats your boat.
- Buy a personal birthday gift and card instead of signing the department card and putting into the collection. Or even send flowers to congratulate someone on a project well done.
Theres a tempation to tell yourself you already have friends and don't need to blur the lines by adding work friendships. But research shows both your career enjoyment and personal growth stand to benefit from doing exactly that. We hope we've given you some ideas to get those life-enriching work friendships going for you.