How to Make Friends at Work and Keep Things Professional

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsHow to Make Friends at the OfficeBenefits of Work FriendshipsWorkplace Friendships and Power DynamicsFriendship vs. ProfessionalismHow to Make Work Friendships Work

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

How to Make Friends at the Office

Benefits of Work Friendships

Workplace Friendships and Power Dynamics

Friendship vs. Professionalism

How to Make Work Friendships Work

Being the new person at work can definitely be intimidating. You don’t know anyone, you’re not sure what the office dynamics are, and lunchtime is about makingawkwardeye contact with people while you try and figure out where to sit. Unfortunately, we’ve all been there, and sometimes the feeling can last longer than you might expect.

For those of us who spend most of our days at the workplace—in whatever form that takes— having work friends can be a major bonus.

Work is to adults like school is to kids—it’s the number one place wemake friendsbecause we have the highest likelihood of interacting with the same people repeatedly, saysShasta Nelson, a friendship coach and author of “The Business of Friendship: Making the Most of the Relationships Where We Spend Most of Our Time.”

Having someone to chat with can definitely brighten up the day and make it feel like less of a grind. Besides, we don’t have to explain things that happened at work to our work friends in the same way we do our family or other friends, because they get it, they were there too, saysNikki Innocent, a holistic life, career, and leadership coach and founder of the Inclusive Leadership Collective.

While having someone to share our stresses and successes with at work can definitely be a blessing, navigating workplace friendships isn’t always easy. Balancing personal and professional roles can be tricky sometimes.

At a GlanceHaving work friends can be a game changer. Work feels more fun and like less of a slog when we can hang out, chat, vent, make inside jokes, and share memes with our friends. Plus, work friends can be a super helpful source of support, advice, and opportunities.There may be times when our jobs have to take precedence over our friendships, or vice versa, but we can navigate these situations with honesty and kindness. Cheering our friends on instead of beingjealousor petty can help workplace friendships be less competitive.

At a Glance

Having work friends can be a game changer. Work feels more fun and like less of a slog when we can hang out, chat, vent, make inside jokes, and share memes with our friends. Plus, work friends can be a super helpful source of support, advice, and opportunities.There may be times when our jobs have to take precedence over our friendships, or vice versa, but we can navigate these situations with honesty and kindness. Cheering our friends on instead of beingjealousor petty can help workplace friendships be less competitive.

There may be times when our jobs have to take precedence over our friendships, or vice versa, but we can navigate these situations with honesty and kindness. Cheering our friends on instead of beingjealousor petty can help workplace friendships be less competitive.

We asked the experts for some tips that can help us make friends in the office.

Be Open to Making Friends at Work

Think of your workplace as one of the best places to make friends since you’re likely to see these people often, says Nelson.

She recommends keeping anopen mindand taking the opportunity to connect with people whenever possible, since you might make friends in unexpected places—on your team, in another department, or even in client or vendor interactions.

Strike Up Conversations

Making friends is about slowly and incrementally getting to know people, says Nelson. You can start withsmall talkand simple conversations that help you find common ground and shared interests.

For example, you could ask someone about their weekend or their hobbies. When they share things with you, Nelson suggests responding with: “I love learning that about you,” “I do that too,” or “That makes complete sense,” to help create a bond with the person. Ask follow-up questions, to show them you’re interested.

—SHASTA NELSON, FRIENDSHIP COACH

Foolproof Conversation Starters That Can Lead to New Friendships

Go to the Office More Often

Many of us are now more likely to have remote or hybrid jobs than before the pandemic. Working remotely offers many benefits, but one of the drawbacks is that it can make it harder to make work friends. Going in to the office more often can help you meet your colleagues and connect with them.

Participate in Office Events, Groups, and Celebrations

Outside of meetings, attending other work events, such as happy hours, team-building activities, oroffice partiescan help you spend time with your coworkers in a more chill and fun setting.

Wishing your colleagues on their birthdays or work anniversaries and congratulating them for their successes at work can also help you connect with them. A little effort often goes a long way.

Ask for Help and Offer It

Work relationships are often transactional, which can cause them to become somewhat shallow or rigid, says Innocent.

She recommends prioritizing reciprocity and generosity, to help you connect with your coworkers on a more personal level. “Asking for support and offering to help your colleagues opens up more vulnerable lines of communication, creating fertile ground where friendships can flourish.”

The idea is to show someone that they can count on you and let them have your back in return.

Remember, You Don’t Need to Be Friends With Everyone

Remember that you don’t need to be friends with everyone at work. Not everyone is a good fit with you and that’s OK, says Innocent. “You may start to explore a friendship with someone at work only to find out that they aren’t the right fit for you oryou aren’t the right fit for them, and that’s fine.”

For example, while you might find a few people you enjoy spending time with and want to be friends with, you can simply be warm and friendly toward others without putting much energy into actually being friends with them, says Nelson. You don’t have to force friendship for the sake of it. Simply focus on leaning into connections with people you vibe with.

It’s not an all or nothing game—workplace acquaintances are important too, says Innocent. You can have friendly and productive interactions with people on your team, without going the extra mile to be friends with them.

Why Can’t I Make Friends?

These are some of thebenefits of having friendsin the workplace:

We don’t have to explain things that happened at work to our work friends in the same way we do our family or other friends, because they get it, they were there too.—NIKKI INNOCENT, CAREER AND LIFE COACH

We don’t have to explain things that happened at work to our work friends in the same way we do our family or other friends, because they get it, they were there too.

—NIKKI INNOCENT, CAREER AND LIFE COACH

Research shows us that workplace friendships are linked to increased job satisfaction and overall employee well-being.

Professional responsibilities can sometimes strain office friendships.

For example, if we’re friends with someone who reports to us, there may be times when we have to take off the friend hat and wear the manager hat instead. If they haven’t met their performance goals or if they’ve been repeatedly late to work for instance, we may have to bring it up with them. These conversations are never easy, and they can be even more awkward if we’re friends with the person.

On the flip side, if we’re friends with ourboss, we may find ourselves choosing our words carefully around them, because we’re afraid of saying something that could impact how they see us.

Or, we might find ourselves competing with our teammate for opportunities. As their friend, we may want them to succeed, but we may also be a little jealous of their accomplishments and wish it were us instead.

If the environment we’re in creates pressure points around different roles, there’s a good chance our relationships will feel that pressure as well, says Innocent.

Striking a Balance Between Friendship and Professionalism

We asked the experts how to maintain a balance between friendship and professionalism.

The same way we strike abalancebetween being partners and parents, or between being roommates and friends, or any other combination of roles we often carry—we recognize there are times when we might have to step into one role more than the other, but we anticipate that being friends will help us do better in the other, Nelson explains.

For example, she says if we’re friends with our neighbors, there might be a time where we have to go talk to them about the fence line or the tree that has to come down, but hopefully that’s an easier conversation to havebecauseof our friendship.

“The same can be true at work—there are times when we’re in the office or in work settings when our friendship doesn’t need to be front-and-center, but it still hopefully leaves us feeling more supported, trusted, and safe as we carry out our work responsibilities,” Nelson adds.

Transparent communication about the big things and the little things can help demystify the gray areas that can show up in workplace friendships. Talk things out loud before they manifest in a high-pressure situation.—NIKKI INNOCENT, CAREER AND LIFE COACH

Being open, honest, kind, andassertivecan help us maintain successful friendships in the workplace.

The old school view of work was that you leave your humanity at the door and tap into a more robotic way of operating, which obviously makes friendships extremely tough to find or nurture, says Innocent.

Fortunately however, as new generations become the majority in the workplace and step into positions of leadership, we are dismantling the idea that you have to sacrifice human connection to be a successful employee, Innocent adds.

These are some strategies that can help us make officefriendshipswork, according to the experts:

10 Signs of a Fake Friend: How to Spot One From a Mile Away

4 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Guohao L, Pervaiz S, Qi H.Workplace friendship is a blessing in the exploration of supervisor behavioral integrity, affective commitment, and employee proactive behavior: An empirical research from service industries of Pakistan.Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2021;14:1447-1459. doi:10.2147/PRBM.S329905Shin SY, Lee SG.Effects of hospital workers' friendship networks on job stress.PLoS One. 2016;11(2):e0149428. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149428Xiao J, Mao JY, Quan J, Qing T.Relationally charged: how and when workplace friendship facilitates employee interpersonal citizenship.Front Psychol. 2020;11:190. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00190He P, Wang J, Zhou H, Zhang C, Liu Q, Xie X.Workplace friendship, employee well-being and knowledge hiding: The moderating role of the perception of Chaxu climate.Front Psychol. 2022;13:1036579. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1036579

4 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Guohao L, Pervaiz S, Qi H.Workplace friendship is a blessing in the exploration of supervisor behavioral integrity, affective commitment, and employee proactive behavior: An empirical research from service industries of Pakistan.Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2021;14:1447-1459. doi:10.2147/PRBM.S329905Shin SY, Lee SG.Effects of hospital workers' friendship networks on job stress.PLoS One. 2016;11(2):e0149428. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149428Xiao J, Mao JY, Quan J, Qing T.Relationally charged: how and when workplace friendship facilitates employee interpersonal citizenship.Front Psychol. 2020;11:190. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00190He P, Wang J, Zhou H, Zhang C, Liu Q, Xie X.Workplace friendship, employee well-being and knowledge hiding: The moderating role of the perception of Chaxu climate.Front Psychol. 2022;13:1036579. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1036579

Guohao L, Pervaiz S, Qi H.Workplace friendship is a blessing in the exploration of supervisor behavioral integrity, affective commitment, and employee proactive behavior: An empirical research from service industries of Pakistan.Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2021;14:1447-1459. doi:10.2147/PRBM.S329905Shin SY, Lee SG.Effects of hospital workers' friendship networks on job stress.PLoS One. 2016;11(2):e0149428. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149428Xiao J, Mao JY, Quan J, Qing T.Relationally charged: how and when workplace friendship facilitates employee interpersonal citizenship.Front Psychol. 2020;11:190. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00190He P, Wang J, Zhou H, Zhang C, Liu Q, Xie X.Workplace friendship, employee well-being and knowledge hiding: The moderating role of the perception of Chaxu climate.Front Psychol. 2022;13:1036579. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1036579

Shin SY, Lee SG.Effects of hospital workers' friendship networks on job stress.PLoS One. 2016;11(2):e0149428. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149428

Xiao J, Mao JY, Quan J, Qing T.Relationally charged: how and when workplace friendship facilitates employee interpersonal citizenship.Front Psychol. 2020;11:190. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00190

He P, Wang J, Zhou H, Zhang C, Liu Q, Xie X.Workplace friendship, employee well-being and knowledge hiding: The moderating role of the perception of Chaxu climate.Front Psychol. 2022;13:1036579. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1036579

Meet Our Review Board

Share Feedback

Was this page helpful?Thanks for your feedback!What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit

Was this page helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit

What is your feedback?

At a Glance#

Be Open to Making Friends at Work#

Strike Up Conversations#

Go to the Office More Often#

Participate in Office Events, Groups, and Celebrations#

Ask for Help and Offer It#

Remember, You Don’t Need to Be Friends With Everyone#

Striking a Balance Between Friendship and Professionalism#