Rules About Having Friends At Work

If you work from 9am-5pm every work day, there are chances that you would see more of your colleagues than some of your family members. Therefore, it would be in your best interest to create a good work place relationship.

Note that one of the things that can make working fun for you is if you have good friends in your workplace. In line with this, a survey has shown that people who have friends in their workplace are more likely to say that they love their companies and are also less likely to be poached by other companies.

Note that before you befriend everyone in the office, work friends come with some conditions so you need to note that they are colleagues first and friends second. Therefore they need to be treated with more discretion than other non-work friends.

Here are some office friendship guidelines you should take note of.

Choose right

There are different types of colleagues in the office which includes the bossy ones, nice ones, the gossips, and many others.

When considering who to choose as a friend, make sure you pick the good ones who would not help destroy your career.

Note that for negative colleagues like the gossips and rumor mongers, being on greeting terms with them is enough, then try as much as possible to avoid encouraging or interacting with them.

Be cautious when sharing vital information

Be very mindful of the kind of information you share to your colleagues at work.

Note that if your friendship spirals downwards, then a sensitive information can be used against you which could even get you fired.

Therefore, beware of disclosing very sensitive information with them, especially the ones you would like to keep a secret from the boss.

Also be careful of your means of informing them because messages sent through the email or a text can be forward-able to the source that could use it against you.

Be careful how you resolve disagreement

When disagreement happens, friendships are not always smooth sailing, so if you are not careful, a personal disagreement can affect your office relationship.

Therefore, if your relationship is on the rocks, try to handle it as professionally and calmly as possible so that it does not affect you negatively.

Note the office hierarchy

All the workers in a company cannot be equal, so try as much as possible to have that at the back of your mind when interacting with them.

In line with that, it is not a crime to be friendly with the manager, boss or a colleague above you, but when you do, be very careful to make sure that your friendship does not affect your professional relationship.