Linda Trim, Director at Giant Leap, one of SA’s largest workplace design consultancies said: “In fact, recent Gallup data show that having a best friend at work has become more important since the start of the pandemic, even considering the dramatic increase in remote and hybrid work”
There are several factors behind the rising importance of having a best friend at work.
For many employees, the pandemic caused traumatic experiences and other profound difficulties, particularly for healthcare and other front-line workers and educators. These employees found the social and emotional support from their best friends at work to be more critical than ever to get them through these challenging times.
“Imagine, for example, the working parent who leaned on their best friend at work (who also has a child) when the pandemic required them to juggle at-home learning and their job responsibilities. Their best friend at work offered judgment-free encouragement during the toughest storms -- the kind of support that communicates, ‘You're not alone.’“
Other employees who were thrown into the world of remote or hybrid work found that their best friend at work helped keep them informed, accountable and connected to their team.
For instance, an employee can ask their best friend at work "dumb" questions about changes to how things get done -- without fear of embarrassment.
And when workloads are heavy, your best friend at work is someone you feel accountable to, someone you don't want to let down. As a result, you naturally want to go the extra mile for them on a project.
On the other hand, an employee without a best friend at work became that much more isolated working from home. And because they lack collaboration and a sense of responsibility to a best friend at work, their performance may have dipped too.
Whether in the office or the virtual world, a best friend at work is a necessary source of connection and support.
Gallup has repeatedly shown that having best friends at work is key to employee engagement and job success. In fact people are more than twice as likely to recommend a company as a great please to work if they have a best friend at work. Workplace satisfaction is also more double for those that have a work frend than those that don’t.
Gallup data also indicates that having a best friend at work is strongly linked to business outcomes, including profitability, safety, inventory control and retention.
Employees who have a best friend at work are significantly more likely to:
- engage customers and internal partners
- get more done in less time
- support a safe workplace with fewer accidents and reliability concerns
- innovate and share ideas
- have fun while at work
“Our latest findings show that since the pandemic started, there has been an even stronger relationship between having a best friend at work and important outcomes such as employees' likelihood to recommend their workplace, their intent to leave and their overall satisfaction with their workplace,” Trim concluded.
