The Power of Work Friends
TLDR: We spend 9+ years of our lives with work colleagues. Research shows workplace friendships boost performance and reduce attrition. The best referral strategy? Let your people hire people they actually like working with.
Why doing a good job is not the whole job.
On average we spend 81,396 hours of our lives — more than nine years — with our work colleagues. So it helps if they can stack the dishwasher properly. But having colleagues who actually like each other could be even more important than you think.
“Close friendships increase workplace productivity”, according to research cited in a fascinating Harvard Business Review piece by Jon Clifton. He gives some tips for how companies can improve the likelihood of social interactions at work:
- Establish a buddy system. “The key to an effective buddy system is the frequency of the interactions.”
- Increase face time. “At a minimum, coworkers need to talk more and email less.”
- Collaborate. “The joy is in working together to produce magic.”
Of course, how businesses react to the trend of increasing isolation is the million-dollar question. We might be biased, but there is a good argument to say that people leaders should be encouraged to refer their friends for roles.
A Rutgers University study cited in the Harvard Business Review found that workplace friendships — also known as “multiplex relationships” — “significantly increase employee performance”, and increase the likelihood of employees cooperating with each other to ask for advice or access information.
In short, you can reduce attrition by building an inclusive referral program where your employees bring in people that they — shock horror — actually like working with.
The rise of the robot recruiters
In a world where recruiters are being replaced by AI, we’re going to need all the friends we can get.
A leaked Amazon memo suggests that the tech giant may be looking to replace human recruiters with AI software to screen applicants, reports Recode by Vox.
“Tech titans like Amazon are looking to tighten their belts, seemingly in part by delivering on long-term bets that technology, and AI in particular, can do what humans do — and maybe more cheaply.”
The bottom line
The power of work friends isn’t just about creating a group of happy campers — your people are integral to an effective referral strategy.