Chapter 12: Relationship with Friends

Workplace Friendships

Considering the amount of time we spend at work, it is only natural that friendships develop among coworkers. Like all such relationships, these involvements are voluntary, based on liking and shared interests. But, the workplace environment impacts whom you befriend and how intimate the friendship gets.

Our most meaningful workplace friendships are those with professional peers, people holding positions of organizational status and power similar to our own. Peers are the most important source of personal and practical support for employees in any type of organization, whether it’s a bank, a hospital, or a band (Rawlins, 1992). Although peer relationships strongly shape the quality of our work lives and are often intensely personal, not all peer relationships are the same (Fritz & Dillard, 1994). Instead, we categorize our peers by levels of intimacy.

Information peers are equivalent-status coworkers with whom our communication is limited to work-related content. Information peer relationships typically are created through assignment rather than choice, and as a result, they lack trust and intimacy. Although these relationships are common, many people view information peers as less open and less communicatively skilled than collegial or special peers, discussed below (Myers, Knox, Pawlowski, & Ropog, 1999).
Collegial peers are coworkers whom we consider friends. When we communicate with collegial peers, we talk about work and personal issues, and we feel moderate levels of trust and intimacy toward these individuals. Scholars sometimes describe these relationships as “blended” because they incorporate elements of both professional and personal relationships (Bridge & Baxter, 1992).
Special peers are equivalent-status coworkers with whom we share very high levels of emotional support, career-related feedback, trust, self-disclosure, and friendship (Sias et al., 2002). The rarest type of peer relationship, special peers are those we consider our best friends in the workplace.

Professional peer relationships evolve from lesser to greater levels of intimacy over time. The first and most significant relationship transition is from information peer to collegial peer (Sias & Cahill, 1998). Workers who spend extended periods of time together, are placed in proximity with each other, or socialize together outside the workplace inevitably form stronger bonds with each other. However, sharing time and activities together is not enough to ensure that a coworker relationship will evolve from information to collegial peer. Like personal friendships, perceived similarity in interests, beliefs, and values is what decisively pushes a workplace relationship from acquaintanceship to friendship (Sias & Cahill, 1998).

The transition from collegial peer to special peer is different, however. Perceived similarity, shared time and tasks, and socializing are all important but are not sufficient to push coworker friendships to the level of best friend (Sias & Cahill, 1998). Instead, the evolution of a coworker friendship to a higher state of intimacy is usually spurred by negative events in partners’ personal lives (serious illness, marital discord) or serious work-related problems that require an exceptional level of social support.

LearningCurve

Chapter 12