friendship at work

A healthy friendship at work: 4 advantages

We go to the office to work, but while we do it, is friendship at work possible? We all know it is, although it doesn’t always happen or happen in the best way. In this article, we will talk about the advantages of building a friendship at work and outline some guidelines to establish it. 

Do we call it friendship? 

Most of the people we work with are not our friends, even if we have a good relationship with them. However, the time spent working side by side allows personal affinities to grow stronger. 

This way, affability or companionship becomes a bond of affection that goes beyond the workplace. Of course, we never stop being professionals and it is important to balance friendship at work with what is strictly work-related so that both aspects do not contaminate each other and damage both. 

In any case, friendship is something very valuable in itself, so having it in the workplace is a good thing that is good to cultivate in the corporate context. This way, friendship at work is a result of a company’s good working environment and, in turn, is what builds that good working environment, generating a virtuous circle in interpersonal relationships within the team. 

amistad en el trabajo

Therefore, HR managers must take it into account when it comes to encouraging it properly and make it have a positive impact on productivity. For this purpose, they can count on the counseling service for managers included in the emotional well-being program for companies designed by ifeel’s team of psychologists. 

Advantages of friendship at work

1. It is a source of emotional support

Work is sometimes a tough place where frustrations, tensions, worries, boredom, or stress occur. Having friendship at work, i.e. someone you trust who knows first-hand the circumstances and can listen to you with that extra closeness, is a huge advantage for the emotional well-being of employees. 

Leaders and managers can learn how to put it at the service of the company’s productivity by receiving advice within the emotional well-being program for companies that ifeel offers its partners.

2. Improves team productivity

Synergies are more fluid when there is a climate of trust and generosity based on mutual affection. Friendship at work fosters complicity among colleagues and team cohesion, resulting in a favorable and collaborative work environment in which creativity favors productivity.

3. Encourages commitment and identity with the company

Having friendship at work helps unite the team and consider it as something of its own, not as a foreign appendix that we have no choice but to assume in order to live. 

That is to say, when we have a good friendship at work, the personal and the professional do not turn their backs on each other, but mix in a constructive way. This way, work is not only a place where people go to produce work, but also a place where they feel like going or, at least, where it is easy to go. 

HR managers should take this into account in their talent retention strategy, one of the key points of the emotional well-being program for companies with which ifeel can help the company improve employee engagement. 

4. Increases the team’s equity

Having a good friendship at work can be considered part of the employee’s emotional salary and an improvement in their experience as an employee. In other words, the talent and skills that employees put into their work are complemented by their emotional ties, as a complement that has more to do with the relational than the individual and, if managed properly, has a positive impact on the company’s productivity.

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How to foster friendship at work?

1. Improving team cohesion

It is essential to establish a good team-building and cohesion strategy, as well as interdepartmental collaborations that favor the establishment of links beyond the three or four people I work with every day and that enhance the feeling of a great team, beyond my immediate colleague with whom I directly share tasks. 

2. Fostering a cooperative culture

In other words, moving the team away from purely competitive dynamics. This is not only a question of attitude but also of concrete decisions. The classic example: distributing commissions equitably promotes cooperation while working for one’s own commission encourages competitiveness.

3. Interacting in a cordial way

On an individual level, we can foster friendship at work in the same way we would with non-office friendships. Basically, it is a matter of actively building the relationship, taking care of the person, and going beyond mere courtesy. To foster positive relationships, it is important to show our availability, involving ourselves naturally in what is happening to the colleague. It is true that we must take measures to properly separate the personal from the professional, but without ceasing to put affection in the relationship, but sharing from trust and helping the other.

amistad en el trabajo

Emotional well-being for companies with ifeel

Ifeel has developed an emotional well-being program for companies, designed by its team of leading psychologists with the aim of helping companies to place the care of the psychological well-being of their employees at the center of their corporate culture, as a fundamental tool to boost productivity in a sustainable way. 

Thanks to this collaboration, HR managers can receive personalized, data-driven advice on how to care for the human capital in their charge. This way, employees’ mental health is fostered while preserving good conditions for optimal productivity.  You can try our program today and start benefiting from its resources.

In addition, ifeel’s emotional well-being program for companies offers employees a mental health care service structured at different levels depending on what they need at any given time. This means that they can access different mental health care tools with ifeel’s app. On a second level, they can receive emotional support through a chat with one of our platform’s licensed psychologists. If continuous help is needed over time, they can access the third level of the program: online psychological therapy with a psychologist specialized in cases like theirs. 

We hope you found this post about the importance of friendship at work interesting. If you would like more information about our emotional well-being program for companies, all you have to do is request it and we will contact your team as soon as possible. You may also be interested in this post about psychosocial risks at work.

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