do you have to be mates together with your work colleagues? | EUROtoday

“IAt first I stopped myself from having friends at work. There was this little music according to which “we should not mix everything”, that it was the peace of mind of moving into bother…”, recollects Élisabeth, a 47-year-old Parisian. Employed in publishing, the forty-year-old has since revised her judgment: “I quickly understood that it would be impossible to keep! » Colleagues and ex-colleagues now make up “half” of his pleasant circle. “Over time, some have even turn out to be my greatest mates. »

Like her, multiple in two French folks (57%) preserve a pleasant relationship with at the least one work colleague, surveyed the recruitment agency PageGroup in 2017. Besides that we undergo most of its time – a parameter extremely favorable to the bond – the workplace would, in truth, represent one of many locations “most conducive to friendly discovery”, advances Point Jean-Claude Delgènes, economist specializing in work group and founding father of the Technologia agency.

Despite strictly supervised missions and roles, it stays an “emotional incubator” and “the ideal place to appreciate the other’s actions: what they say and what they do, but also and above all how they behave with others. “Fundamental” assessments to the development of true friendships, believes this keen observer of interpersonal relationships, who himself claims several close friends – including his current partner – met at work.

A “precious link” and real “fuel for commitment and emulation”, he testifies. Observations corroborated by a number of field surveys carried out on the subject. Emotional support, knowledge sharing, mutual aid in difficult situations… The latest study, for the review Harvard Business review (2024), goes so far as to note a doubling of the well-being of employees with a friend in their team – and a sevenfold increase in the case of a best friend.

“Having a friend at work means enjoying going there, but also and above all being able to find comfort there and an attentive ear, to whom you can talk about problems that relationships from other spheres would not understand », Testifies Maria*, 49 years old, project manager in communication and with many friendships born in companies – “I am part of the link and cannot see myself working any other way…”

Conflicting issues

Positive and beneficial, these relationships are nonetheless without some pitfalls. Conflict of loyalty, promotion, rivalry, power struggles… Friendships, whether born at work or pre-existing the professional context, “can be weakened and affected by a number of internal ordeals specific to the work environment. company,” recalls Jean Pralong, psychologist and professor of human resources at EM Normandie.

“It must be remembered that friendship is part of the register of interpersonal selection, based on affinity and freedom,” explains the specialist in workplace psychology. That’s almost the opposite of the business world, an environment of constraints and structured and formal rules, where at every second the interest of one person can vary from that of the other. When it does not register against that of the other…

Thus, Pierre*, a 48-year-old journalist, remembers this college friend who joined him, twenty years earlier, in the editorial staff in which he worked (“I had knowledgeable him of a place obtainable, and beneficial it internally”). “Everything was going well,” says the forty-year-old. We shared the same office, talked daily, joked together…”

Until the day when “we started to compete on our subjects, then to apply for the same position…” Position for which his friend will ultimately be chosen, to the detriment of Pierre. “I harbored a certain jealousy, a certain resentment,” confides the latter. “From there, our relationship lost its naturalness and our bond became strained, until it finally broke…”

Do not “trap” any party

“I wouldn’t risk working with a friend. I prefer that we become to be able to define rules from the start,” explains Maria when discussing these power struggles and other disruptions in balance. With twenty-five years of experience, the communicator knows that friendship at work is a “tricky part to play”. Particularly when a hierarchical relationship links friends to each other.

She herself was “very close” to a colleague who became her superior. “In order not to put her in difficulty, I found myself accepting much more than I would have done with others, to the point of finding myself overloaded with work…” she recalls. A link known to her colleagues, from whom she quickly fears suspicions of unfairness – felt by 46% of employees in her situation (Ifop for ComptePro, 2023). “I even offered to take on menial tasks to assure them that I was not the favorite…”

Perverse effects that labor specialists know well. “No, friendship in business is not about small arrangements with the rules… underlines Jean-Claude Delgènes. Besides, more is often asked of his friends than of others,” he confirms.

To Discover



Kangaroo of the day

Answer

His recommendation: assume the hyperlink in transparency and follow ethics, in any other case set a transparent framework. The most secure manner to not have an effect on the connection, and to not “trap” any social gathering. For the remainder, friendship at work “always means putting oneself, a little, in a fragile position,” he admits, calling it, as an expertise, “a great risk to take.” A state of affairs that 40% of French folks nonetheless say, on account of its ambivalence, they like to maintain at a distance.

* First names have been modified