Despite generally negative attitudes toward office socializing, both Ford and Davis-Blunt will admit to a few benefits of corporate camaraderie. For the employee, it's a chance to get some informal coaching and needed support. For peers, it's simply an ear for listening to ideas and the assumption that your friend has no hidden agendas and will tell you the truth. When workplace friendships are positive, they can make the space and the work more interesting and fulfilling. They add a new facet of loyalty, commitment, and purpose to our lives.
Employees seek win-win solutions to problems.
The synergy is contagious. In How Friendship Enhances Your Career , Jan Yager, PhD, cites several statistics to encourage making friends on the job. Albert R. Karr puts that percentage even higher. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, he reported that 60 percent of 351 surveyed jobseekers found their job through friends and former colleagues. Some workplace relationships are built on secret agendas and unfounded biases, which can cause those beyond the inner circle to feel isolated and abandoned.