A couple of weeks ago one of my favorite colleagues, who I’ve come to consider a friend, confided to me that she hadn’t gotten a raise in years. She’s an incredibly hard worker and top performer who I know is highly valued here. But unlike a lot of workplaces, Forbes doesn’t have a formal salary review process for editorial employees. She was thinking of asking for a pay hike but having trouble finding the courage. I sat with her and went over her accomplishments and we came up with a strategy for approaching her boss. That helped her gather the confidence to make an appointment and prepare a pitch.
Would she have reached this point without my help? Possibly not, says psychologist Ron Friedman, 37, a management and market research consultant who just published the book, The Best Places to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace (Friedman has contributed to Forbes as a guest blogger). He says having friends at work can contribute powerfully to your ability to focus, deal with setbacks, improve your performance and up your salary. “Friendship is the single most overlooked factor when it comes to building an extraordinary workplace,” he says.
While some of us might think it’s distracting to work with our buddies, Friedman points to research that shows the opposite. A 1997 study by professors at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Minnesota divided students into small groups made up of either close friends or acquaintances. The groups then did two projects. One involved decision-making and collaborative thinking and in the other, the students built models out of Styrofoam balls, glue and popsicle sticks according to a diagram.
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The researchers wanted to know whether friendships improved the students’ performance on one task versus the other. Instead they found that the friends outperformed the acquaintances in both instances. The reasons: friends were more committed to the projects at the outset, they communicated better while working and they gave their teammates free-flowing positive feedback. If their colleagues were screwing up in some way, they were more comfortable offering critical comments and helping their colleagues get back on task. By contrast, the acquaintances worked in their individual bubbles, reluctant to ask for help. They never came together as a collaborative group.
One other benefit of work friendships: “Because there’s this basic psychological need to feel connected to those around us, we can devote less attention to whether or not we’re fitting in and more attention to actually doing the work,” says Friedman.
There are also tangible physical benefits to working with friends, Friedman points out. He says a slew of studies have shown that lonely people are less healthy than their gregarious counterparts. Lonely people have higher blood pressure, a weaker immune system and a tougher time falling asleep at night. One study showed that chronic loneliness can lead to earlier mortality. Of course we perform better at work when we’re well-rested and in good health. Another study Friedman cites in his book, a 2011 paper by management professors at the Wharton business school and California State University at Sacramento, relied on interviews with 672 employees over a six-week period. The employees who felt lonelier at the start of the study demonstrated weaker performance in three different categories: they weren’t good communicators, their individual contributions were weaker and they had trouble focusing.
Lonely people also use up a lot of energy putting up a happy front. “Often they waste valuable cognitive resources attempting to hide their loneliness from others,” writes Friedman, “leaving even less mental firepower for doing their work.”
There is one other aspect of work friendships that is good for employers and arguably not great for employees: a heightened sense of loyalty. “When our coworkers are our friends, it suddenly becomes a lot harder to leave,” says Friedman, who points out that my colleague’s experience of going without a raise for a long time is becoming more common. Many employers are even willing to shed experienced workers and bring on someone younger who can do the job for less, he points out.
On balance though, making friends with your colleagues is best for your career. You will perform better, achieve more, advance more quickly within your organization and enjoy better health. When it’s time to move on, it may be tough to leave your friends, though you’ll be in a better position to find the best possible job.
