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You probably spent Christmas surrounded by friends, family and random people you've met once before and had to pretend to remember. But the reality of work has well and truly kicked back in and after feeling safe and warm in the bosom of Baileys and Elf, we're back at our desks wondering how the hell the festive break went so fast and January is going so slowly. And for people who work from home or dip in and out of the office as a hybrid worker, that can feel incredibly lonely.
Hi, I'm new here...
Fostering work friendships in a new job has always been tricky. You’re entering an environment where people already know each other and you’re the ‘newbie’. But a few chats over messy desks, several tea-making sessions, plus a few big nights out are usually enough to sufficiently bond you to your new colleagues.
But now there's a new layer to work culture which is making things more difficult than ever – the post-pandemic culture of home and hybrid working.
Employees who connect with people via video calls or email are not getting the chance to form proper relationships. Does remote working mean work friendships are slowly becoming a thing of the past?
It’s likely that people who still work for the same company they did pre-pandemic will already have a group of work friends they keep in touch with before and after lockdowns.
While many established work friendships have remained solid throughout COVID, new recruits working from home who are devoid of any one-to-one colleague contact may find it impossible to form any new or new meaningful work relationships.
If the situation carries on as it is, there’s no doubt it will have increasingly negative implications on workplace culture and feelings of isolation.
"New recruits working from home who are devoid of any one-to-one colleague contact may find it impossible to form any new or new meaningful work relationships."
Office friendships can be a lifeline
A prime example of this is when a colleague felt unwell recently. I suggested she take the following day off to rest and recover. Her reply? "I feel really down and isolated. Working virtually is f*cking miserable and right now, I need some human contact to pull me out of this."
Imagine someone who works from home feeling this every day. Loneliness is inevitably going to kick in sometimes, and no amount of Zoom calls can make up for in-person conversations.
Friendships feel more important than ever in the era of hybrid working, but even sitting side-by-side with co-workers or having joint meetings still doesn’t always cut it. You could be in on different days to the people you are friends with, and those close ties could easily fall by the wayside.
I feel like the biggest worry is for younger people who are starting new jobs where they are working from home from day one, and therefore aren’t given the opportunity to be a part of something bigger and more exciting.
Gen Z-focused TV shows (think Good Trouble and The Bold Type) sell the dream of amazing office friendships, but with 24% of the UK working population now working from home, fostering new connections is harder than ever.
HR advisory and research firm Future Workplace carried out a study in 2018 in which 70% of employees said that friends at work were the most crucial element of a happy working life. Meanwhile, a recent survey carried out by events company Wildgoose found that 40% of respondents said they lack real workplace friendships.
Loneliness = anxiety
I have made most of my friendships through work over the years, but if you don't get the opportunity to connect with those people and get to know them, you could end up feeling very isolated.
If I were to start work again from scratch and I was working in a hybrid way, I would find it incredibly difficult. Of course, some people are more introverted by nature and may enjoy solitude. But even if you’re shy and like your own company, being alone for five full working days can still negatively affect people’s mental health and increase anxiety levels.
Work friendships can provide light relief when you’re frazzled or run down, and talking to someone who understands can make a huge difference. Being able to have a coffee with someone and vent about work or niggling relationship problems can make you feel better in a matter of minutes.
No one can sense that you’re miserable and overwhelmed on a video call. However, if you're sitting across from someone in an office and they can see you're upset, it’s those moments of support that help you to build lasting friendships. It’s much easier to be open about your vulnerability if you can connect with someone on a human level rather than via a screen.
Personal subjects aren’t the kind of thing you can bring up during Teams meetings, which are functional and have a clear purpose. It's unlikely anyone is going to check in on employees' emotional well-being during a discussion about quarterly goals.
"It’s much easier to be open about your vulnerability if you can connect with someone on a human level rather than via a screen."
Connection is key
One solution could be for bosses to implement rigid, anchored days when people have to be in the office, even if it's only one day a week or month. If people have total freedom, you don’t have any clarity about how those cohesive days get used.
If one of the main roles is for people to come together and build friendships, it's imperative they are all there on the same day.
In-office work days can be a bit more fluid and more about community, therefore ensuring people are feeling motivated and happy.
It’s about using the office as a tool and ensuring it is buzzy and has good energy. Maybe bonding exercises can be incorporated, or even a night out.
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There is so much pressure around budgets and meeting targets and people need some form of relief. There is very little fun to be had if you're remote or hybrid working. People need to be able to head to a bar straight from work, have a couple of drinks and chat with other people that get where they’re coming from. Some of the best work ideas can also spring from those kinds of conversations.
Offices and colleagues need to have a community and cultural element to them for people to do their best work. Some employees may not be quite as productive on days when everyone is in the office, but it’s about having a slightly different metric and focusing on what is important. It’s also likely that working from home days will be far more productive because they will feel like their job is more balanced.
"Offices and colleagues need to have a community and cultural element to them for people to do their best work."
A major incentive for bosses to ensure their employees are feeling accepted and connected is the fact that happier and more connected people are likely to stay in their jobs for longer.
Heavy workloads need to be broken up by lighter moments so people enjoy the experience more. If you work someone into the ground and don’t allow them to have a nice environment to be in, they'll likely be scanning recruitment websites far quicker than you would like.
In the days when I worked in advertising, the main reason I stayed in one company so long was because I had so many great friends. We worked f*cking hard and I could not have had a better and more intense work ethic, but it came from a place of pride, unity and community. I genuinely worked harder because the office felt like a second home.
Employers need to step up
Employers need to be more aware of how important it is to keep their workers happy and to do that they have to realise how vital social elements are.
Pre-COVID, they didn't have to take ownership of it because socialising was a natural, instinctive thing employees did. But the landscape has changed hugely and bosses have to step up and put things in place so people truly feel like they belong.
Employers need to be more conscious about how different life is for those people who are predominantly out of the office, and how essential it is for them to still feel like they’re a part of it.
Maybe they could introduce a lunchtime Zoom quiz once a week, with a decent prize up for grabs so people have the incentive to join in. They could also pair people up with office buddies so they can bounce ideas off each other and have someone to confide in if staring at the same four walls each day starts to feel a bit much.
Bosses also need to make the office a positive environment so people are more inclined to want to work from there. Relaxing things slightly and allowing random half hours where staff can spend it as they like could make all the difference.
Essentially, it’s time for employers to think outside the box and help fill friendship and connection gaps if they want dedicated staff who will go the distance.
"Employers need to be more conscious about how different life is for those people who are predominantly out of the office, and how essential it is for them to still feel like they’re a part of it."
If you enjoyed this article and want to delve deeper, we have a wide selection of resources available in the PUSH Perspectives section of our website.
For more like this, subscribe to our newsletter.
You probably spent Christmas surrounded by friends, family and random people you've met once before and had to pretend to remember. But the reality of work has well and truly kicked back in and after feeling safe and warm in the bosom of Baileys and Elf, we're back at our desks wondering how the hell the festive break went so fast and January is going so slowly. And for people who work from home or dip in and out of the office as a hybrid worker, that can feel incredibly lonely.
Hi, I'm new here...
Fostering work friendships in a new job has always been tricky. You’re entering an environment where people already know each other and you’re the ‘newbie’. But a few chats over messy desks, several tea-making sessions, plus a few big nights out are usually enough to sufficiently bond you to your new colleagues.
But now there's a new layer to work culture which is making things more difficult than ever – the post-pandemic culture of home and hybrid working.
Employees who connect with people via video calls or email are not getting the chance to form proper relationships. Does remote working mean work friendships are slowly becoming a thing of the past?
It’s likely that people who still work for the same company they did pre-pandemic will already have a group of work friends they keep in touch with before and after lockdowns.
While many established work friendships have remained solid throughout COVID, new recruits working from home who are devoid of any one-to-one colleague contact may find it impossible to form any new or new meaningful work relationships.
If the situation carries on as it is, there’s no doubt it will have increasingly negative implications on workplace culture and feelings of isolation.
"New recruits working from home who are devoid of any one-to-one colleague contact may find it impossible to form any new or new meaningful work relationships."
Office friendships can be a lifeline
A prime example of this is when a colleague felt unwell recently. I suggested she take the following day off to rest and recover. Her reply? "I feel really down and isolated. Working virtually is f*cking miserable and right now, I need some human contact to pull me out of this."
Imagine someone who works from home feeling this every day. Loneliness is inevitably going to kick in sometimes, and no amount of Zoom calls can make up for in-person conversations.
Friendships feel more important than ever in the era of hybrid working, but even sitting side-by-side with co-workers or having joint meetings still doesn’t always cut it. You could be in on different days to the people you are friends with, and those close ties could easily fall by the wayside.
I feel like the biggest worry is for younger people who are starting new jobs where they are working from home from day one, and therefore aren’t given the opportunity to be a part of something bigger and more exciting.
Gen Z-focused TV shows (think Good Trouble and The Bold Type) sell the dream of amazing office friendships, but with 24% of the UK working population now working from home, fostering new connections is harder than ever.
HR advisory and research firm Future Workplace carried out a study in 2018 in which 70% of employees said that friends at work were the most crucial element of a happy working life. Meanwhile, a recent survey carried out by events company Wildgoose found that 40% of respondents said they lack real workplace friendships.
Loneliness = anxiety
I have made most of my friendships through work over the years, but if you don't get the opportunity to connect with those people and get to know them, you could end up feeling very isolated.
If I were to start work again from scratch and I was working in a hybrid way, I would find it incredibly difficult. Of course, some people are more introverted by nature and may enjoy solitude. But even if you’re shy and like your own company, being alone for five full working days can still negatively affect people’s mental health and increase anxiety levels.
Work friendships can provide light relief when you’re frazzled or run down, and talking to someone who understands can make a huge difference. Being able to have a coffee with someone and vent about work or niggling relationship problems can make you feel better in a matter of minutes.
No one can sense that you’re miserable and overwhelmed on a video call. However, if you're sitting across from someone in an office and they can see you're upset, it’s those moments of support that help you to build lasting friendships. It’s much easier to be open about your vulnerability if you can connect with someone on a human level rather than via a screen.
Personal subjects aren’t the kind of thing you can bring up during Teams meetings, which are functional and have a clear purpose. It's unlikely anyone is going to check in on employees' emotional well-being during a discussion about quarterly goals.
"It’s much easier to be open about your vulnerability if you can connect with someone on a human level rather than via a screen."
Connection is key
One solution could be for bosses to implement rigid, anchored days when people have to be in the office, even if it's only one day a week or month. If people have total freedom, you don’t have any clarity about how those cohesive days get used.
If one of the main roles is for people to come together and build friendships, it's imperative they are all there on the same day.
In-office work days can be a bit more fluid and more about community, therefore ensuring people are feeling motivated and happy.
It’s about using the office as a tool and ensuring it is buzzy and has good energy. Maybe bonding exercises can be incorporated, or even a night out.
There is so much pressure around budgets and meeting targets and people need some form of relief. There is very little fun to be had if you're remote or hybrid working. People need to be able to head to a bar straight from work, have a couple of drinks and chat with other people that get where they’re coming from. Some of the best work ideas can also spring from those kinds of conversations.
Offices and colleagues need to have a community and cultural element to them for people to do their best work. Some employees may not be quite as productive on days when everyone is in the office, but it’s about having a slightly different metric and focusing on what is important. It’s also likely that working from home days will be far more productive because they will feel like their job is more balanced.
"Offices and colleagues need to have a community and cultural element to them for people to do their best work."
A major incentive for bosses to ensure their employees are feeling accepted and connected is the fact that happier and more connected people are likely to stay in their jobs for longer.
Heavy workloads need to be broken up by lighter moments so people enjoy the experience more. If you work someone into the ground and don’t allow them to have a nice environment to be in, they'll likely be scanning recruitment websites far quicker than you would like.
In the days when I worked in advertising, the main reason I stayed in one company so long was because I had so many great friends. We worked f*cking hard and I could not have had a better and more intense work ethic, but it came from a place of pride, unity and community. I genuinely worked harder because the office felt like a second home.
Employers need to step up
Employers need to be more aware of how important it is to keep their workers happy and to do that they have to realise how vital social elements are.
Pre-COVID, they didn't have to take ownership of it because socialising was a natural, instinctive thing employees did. But the landscape has changed hugely and bosses have to step up and put things in place so people truly feel like they belong.
Employers need to be more conscious about how different life is for those people who are predominantly out of the office, and how essential it is for them to still feel like they’re a part of it.
Maybe they could introduce a lunchtime Zoom quiz once a week, with a decent prize up for grabs so people have the incentive to join in. They could also pair people up with office buddies so they can bounce ideas off each other and have someone to confide in if staring at the same four walls each day starts to feel a bit much.
Bosses also need to make the office a positive environment so people are more inclined to want to work from there. Relaxing things slightly and allowing random half hours where staff can spend it as they like could make all the difference.
Essentially, it’s time for employers to think outside the box and help fill friendship and connection gaps if they want dedicated staff who will go the distance.
"Employers need to be more conscious about how different life is for those people who are predominantly out of the office, and how essential it is for them to still feel like they’re a part of it."
If you enjoyed this article and want to delve deeper, we have a wide selection of resources available in the PUSH Perspectives section of our website.
For more like this, subscribe to our newsletter.
