Whether you’re at your first job, fresh out of college, or on your fifth career change, everyone worries about how well they will get along with co-workers. Sometimes you really hit it off and stay friends forever, even well after you've left the job. Other times you dread going into the office each day because you don’t feel like you connect with a single soul. Both are reasonable and very real scenarios. And there are ways to manage both so they don't take away from what you show up at the office to do every day: your job.


 Levo spoke to Shasta Nelson, life coach, CEO of GirlfriendCircles.com, and author of the book Friendships Don’t Just Happen, and asked her about everything you need to know about making friends in the office, including who you should pursue and who you should stay away from.


Making Friends In The Office | Levo | Tips
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If you really feel a connection with a co-worker, is it a good idea to try and deepen that relationship? Or should “office life” and “real life” be kept separate?
No! I don’t think they should be separate at all! In fact, that really is one of the last places to make friends where we have one of the biggest friendship challenges taken care of for us — consistency. That’s why it felt easy in school – we saw each other every day. In “real life” it’s actually much more difficult to see each other regularly enough to build up that familiarity and comfortableness. The office is perfect, since you both have to spend so much time there. I’d definitely try to deepen that relationship, so much so that I’d encourage you to practice being friends outside of work, too, so that when one of you leaves the job you already have other structures in place for your friendship to continue.

 How concerned should you be about making friends in the office, even at the basic level of casual friendship?People who have friends at work are way more inclined to report job satisfaction and companies recognize that that’s one of the best ways to retain employees. We will put up with a lot of stress and non-ideal job descriptions if we like the people we work with, so I’d say it’s worth being a pretty high priority at work. Plus, this is where you spend most of your time, so it make sense that at minimum you want to be surrounded by people you’re friendly with, even if they don’t all turn into consequential friendships.

 Are there any “rules” to making friends in the office?I’d say two good principles are to, one, take it slow, and two, don’t let your friendship ever make others feel excluded in the office. The first one is super-important: don’t over-share with someone. Vulnerability — sharing more about yourself with less of a filter — is one of the actions that develops a friendship, but I encourage everyone to engage it step by step so that really you’re never taking a big risk, as much as you are many, many small ones. But that’s even more important at work, where you don’t want to share too much with someone before you’ve co-created a trusting relationship with each other. 

 And the second rule speaks more to making sure your friendship is adding to the office dynamics, not excluding others or making people feel wary, left out or suspicious. While at work, invite more people to join in your friendly relationship—invite others to sit with you at lunch — and try to do more of your eventual secret-sharing outside of the office.

 What are some good ways to explore deepening a relationship with a co-worker?Probably start with friendliness and chit-chat, talking about the weekend, and what TV shows you’re watching. Then the next goal is to find a way to spend more substantial time together, so usually an invitation to grab lunch together, attend an event together, or meet for drinks after work will help make that happen. And this is where it may stay for a while—friendliness in the office, friendship for an hour here and there outside the office.  In fact, if this is as far as it goes — it’s an incredibly valuable relationship that will increase your happiness at work. In some cases, you may want to grow it to the next step and that means eventually starting to get together when it’s completely unattached to work, such as brunch on the weekend, a double-date with the boyfriends on a Friday night, or getting together to watch your favorite TV shows one night.

 Can you — or should you — ever be friends with your manager? Or, if you are a manager, friends with your subordinate?This one can be tricky because there is not a “one size fits all” answer. Our personalities, company culture, and individual job descriptions will inform the decision. But in theory, I’d say yes. We can be friends with people even if we have different roles at work. Obviously it requires both people respecting the other so much that neither one shares confidential information or asks for favors at work. And the two rules I mentioned earlier–taking it slow and not letting your friendship make others uncomfortable–are even more important. But the first two steps of friendship—being friendly and starting to spend more considerable time together—is more than appropriate, in my opinion.

 Fights among friends are inevitable, and can become even more hot-button if that friend is also a co-worker. What is your advice for dealing with conflicts with friends in the office?This goes back to the second rule—don’t let your friendship make others uncomfortable in the office. That means they shouldn’t know you’re fighting. You don’t gossip about her, talk about her, or take it out on each other. Maturity means trusting each other so that even when we’re mad or disappointed,  we can still trust each other to have our backs. It also speaks to the “taking it slow” part—you should never have shared more than you felt the relationship was ready to support. By the time you fight, you should have some considerable history between the two of you where you can trust you’ll both make up and be closer than ever.

 What should you do if you don’t feel a connection with co-workers, on even the most basic level? (Assuming that you enjoy your job.)Bonds can always, always be developed, in some form or another. The best place to start is with having enough conversations that you can start seeing where you both have similarities or where you “get” each other. We all have more things in common than we realize — even if we have a 40-year age gap, opposite political views and are in completely different life stages. I believe that those who seek, find; which means that if we say to ourselves, “I am choosing to like you, now I’m going to keep looking for the reasons,” we will always find them!
What has worked for you when it comes to making friends in the office? Tell us in the comments below.

Article Originally Featured on Levo League