Should you be Friends with Coworkers? Mapping the Pros and Cons

Should you be friends with your coworkers? It is a question for the ages and most feel very strongly about the matter, one way or the other. Some believe that friendships at work are inappropriate and can never be continued outside of work, while others are certain you can find lifelong friends among your work associates. Socializing with coworkers can be quite cathartic in the middle of a very tiring work week but at the same time, toxic coworkers can turn on you at any moment. The rules for establishing friendships at work are rarely overtly defined, so it’s up to you to establish your own principles about how you operate.

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Being Friends with Coworkers Can Be Complicated—Getting Down to the Basics

A workplace is a formal setting where every individual is expected to maintain decorum and behave in a way that reflects the seriousness of the work that is done there. Employees with different backgrounds and experiences come together, and while some of them work different roles, others perform similar tasks every day. Within each team, there’s a hierarchy and even between the teams, there’s a different dynamic that comes into play. 

Socializing with each of these coworkers requires you to prepare for a different type of relationship. This is mainly why friendships at work can be difficult. While there is one single clear cut answer for whether you should allow yourself to get close to your work associates, breaking down the pros and cons of establishing friendships at work might help you decide what works best for you.

Pros of Turning Coworker into Friends

There are many benefits to being friends with your coworkers. The degree of closeness can vary but generally, being friendly with coworkers and sharing ideas and experiences with them tends to be good for an individual both personally and professionally,

Builds a Deeper Connection with the Organization

Even if the work environment is stressful, having a few close coworkers can help you feel more in tune with the company. It gives you another reason to look forward to your work and to the idea of coming in to do your job.

Improves Communication 

Friends are easier to communicate with and usually more accessible. This allows conversations to flow more frequently and in a much easier manner. Better quality of communication helps guarantee everyone is on the same page, boosting the quality of work.

Improves Trust at Work

When coworkers turn into friends, you gain a better understanding of how they operate and the kind of decisions they make. This makes it easier to distribute work and trust in the decisions they will make.

You Gain a Support System Within the Workplace

Workplaces are full of stressful situations and having a few reliable supporters can be a blessing in between the chaos.

Improved Problem Solving

Having friends at work can give you another perspective on a problem you are stuck with. Their familiarity with the organization will help reach a more relevant strategy than talking to a friend who is not part of the organization.

Improves Collaboration

Hostile teams are rarely able to get any work done. When employees are able to exchange ideas without getting riled up, work flows more smoothly.

Helps Locate Resources More Easily

Friendships at work facilitate resource sharing and you have a wider network to contact when you need to access resources.

Creates a More Peaceful Work Environment

When employees get along with each other, there is less cause for individuals clashing heads. Even when conflicts do arise, it’s much easier to resolve them amicably. 

Cons of Being Friends with Coworkers

Despite the many benefits, there are some reasons why it’s recommended that you maintain boundaries with your coworkers. The workplace requires a different dynamic than a friend you’ve had since high school and blurring the boundaries between work and friendship can have damaging consequences. 

Giving Critical Feedback Becomes Difficult

When you socialize with your coworkers and become very close to them, you become more wary of hurting their feelings and handling out critical feedback, which can affect their performance and the quality of work done.

You Might Become More Sensitive to Their Behavior

It’s easier to accept negative feedback from a manager whose job it is to give corrective advice, compared to accepting a negative review from a friend. Becoming very close to your coworkers can confuse you into expecting them to be gentle and forgiving all the time, which is not possible in a workplace.

It Becomes Harder to Maintain a Competitive Edge

For many people, improving themselves and aiming higher with every appraisal round is how they stay motivated at work. When employees become overly close, it’s hard for some of them to maintain the drive to do better than their colleagues.

Crossing Boundaries Can Permanently Damage Your Reputation at Work

We tend to let our guard down around friends and have frank conversations or gossip sessions about colleagues at work. Not everyone is comfortable with such talk and it’s difficult to tell where the boundary lies with a work friend. Over time, you might find yourself overstepping.

Unprofessional Behavior at Work

Becoming friends with coworkers is fun but some of those lighthearted interactions may begin to turn up during working hours such as laughing at inside jokes or exchanging emails with casual language. When others begin to notice, it could come across as being unprofessional. 

No Work-Life Balance

Once you become close to a coworker and start meeting them outside of work, you will often begin to have work conversations with them even when you’re outside. This lack of division between work and personal life can impact you in the long run.

Your Private Life Is More Susceptible to Intrusion

Once you start to overshare at work, it’s hard to tell someone to give you space when their questions become too invasive. Some people are likely to misuse what they know about you or spread private details at work, which can become very uncomfortable.

Should You Be Friends with Coworkers?

The long list of pros and cons can tell you there are both advantages to maintaining friendships at work, however, one thing we can all agree on is that being hostile is not an option. Even if you believe that socializing with coworkers impairs your ability to do your job well, you will have to work with them in harmony and communicate with them regularly enough to necessitate a stable relationship. 

Work friendships are an essential component of any workplace and even if you limit your friendships to interactions within working hours, you will find your work much easier to do when you have an amicable relationship with everyone rather than when you are curt with your colleagues all the time. At the end of the day, you can take every work friendship as it comes and determine how comfortable you are with them. Setting healthy boundaries and creating clear rules is the best way to navigate any associations within the workplace.

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