Dr. Leen Kawas, an experienced biotech industry leader, highlights ways in which workplace camaraderie can positively impact individual and company success.
As companies in all industries continue to chart a post-pandemic path forward, workplace dynamics are undergoing their own evolution. Specifically, the spotlight is on workplace friendships that take congenial working relationships to the next level. The two parties become true friends, demonstrating many positive attributes typical of offsite personal relationships.
Some managers regard workplace friendships as unprofessional and a distraction from productive workplace operations. However, Leen Kawas, Ph. D. sees it differently. In Dr. Kawas’ view, good workplace friends can be the catalyst for stronger teams and improved job satisfaction.
Dr. Leen Kawas is Well-Versed in Workplace Dynamics
Dr. Leen Kawas is Propel Bio Partners’ Managing General Partner. Based in Los Angeles, this growing venture capital firm provides start-up and early-stage biotech companies with financial, technical, and operations support services.
While visiting clients at their respective workplaces, Dr. Leen Kawas developed an understanding of each biotech’s workplace dynamics. Today, she remains convinced that workplace friendships can help facilitate team members’ achievements and improve their job satisfaction.
5 Ways Team Members Benefit from Workplace Friendships
Workplace friendships offer significant advantages to the team members involved. Dr. Leen Kawas highlighted five benefits that together can enhance employees’ well-being, job performance, and job satisfaction.
Enhanced Morale and Support
A supportive workplace friend can help a fellow team member cultivate improved well-being. When performing mundane tasks, this friend can initiate lighthearted social interactions that provide a positive counterpoint. When constructive criticism is necessary, a workplace friend is often better equipped to deliver this feedback than one’s team leader or manager. And on a low-morale day, a workplace friend’s optimism can help to turn it around.
Team members must often learn to navigate new responsibilities and technologies. Here, workplace friends can deliver honest feedback and (if necessary) instruction on unclear areas. The friend’s sincere desire for their workmate’s success enables this positive engagement.
Better Physical and Mental Health
In today’s fast-paced business landscape, team members are often faced with heavy workloads and constantly reshuffled priorities. Combined with home and/or family responsibilities, these multiple demands can often lead to increased stress. Over time, this stress can translate into negative health impacts.
Fortunately, upbeat workplace friends can help ease this harmful stress. By serving as a sounding board, and providing social support, a workplace friend can help keep their teammate on an even keel. This decreased stress reduces health risks, setting the stage for better overall health.
Enhanced Collaborative Potential
In any business setting, workplace friends’ communication can drive more productive exchanges with colleagues and other partners. When everyone shares the same mission and goals, better collaboration and more effective teamwork often result. Dr. Leen Kawas emphasized the importance of this positive interpersonal dynamic.
Higher Overall Productivity
According to the Harvard Business Review, when two team members form a workplace friendship, their mutual support and encouragement enable better communication. Workplace friends also spark more sharing, creativity, and innovation. Employees with a workplace friend are more likely to maintain a safe workspace that translates into better reliability and fewer accidents.
Finally, workplace friends often effectively engage with internal colleagues and external partners (e.g. customers). Taken together, these positive factors drive increased productivity, enabling workplace friends to accomplish more in less time. In the fast-paced biotech industry, Dr. Leen Kawas noted that this is a significant advantage.
Improved Job Satisfaction
Mutually beneficial workplace relationships help enhance both team members’ well-being. When they feel supported at work, and can share their successes and challenges with a close friend, they will likely be more motivated to deliver a top-notch performance. Together, these factors help facilitate improved job satisfaction.
How Organizations Can Benefit from Workplace Friendships
Workplace friendships can benefit an organization in multiple ways. Friendship-based teams demonstrate more creativity and improved problem-solving skills compared to employees without personal connections. Friends engaged in collaborative tasks also tend to complete them more quickly. Finally, workplace connections help facilitate more employee loyalty and increased retention.
Leaders who promote congenial workplace relationships are cultivating a positive company culture. When friendships extend beyond team-building exercises, employees may be more likely to support the company’s vision, mission, and core values.
Setting Professional Boundaries Amid Personal Connections
Workplace friendships may require several caveats that don’t apply to alliances forged via offsite channels. Dr. Leen Kawas offered two insights on maintaining professional boundaries while cultivating rewarding workplace connections.
Use Discretion When Sharing Personal Information
When colleagues transform into workplace friends, both parties should ideally be equal contributors. If one person overshares personal information, and the friends haven’t cultivated the needed trust, an uncomfortable dynamic could result. These awkward workplace interactions could impact key projects and otherwise disrupt workplace harmony.
To avoid this scenario, both friends should begin by sharing small personal details. Over time, the friends’ respective comfort levels will dictate their level of personal disclosure.
Minimize Workplace Friendships’ Disruptive Potential
When good working relationships evolve into workplace friendships, these alliances could threaten to disrupt existing workplace dynamics. To illustrate, perceptions of favoritism could occur between a manager and an employee friend. Perceived cliques could alienate colleagues who feel excluded. To address these issues, Dr. Leen Kawas recommended that managers and team leaders consult with the organization’s Human Resources Manager.
5 Tips for Building Satisfying Workplace Friendships
Cultivating mutually beneficial workplace friendships won’t happen overnight. That said, Dr. Leen Kawas offered five tips for growing these congenial alliances against a professional backdrop. These suggestions can also help elevate the company culture.
- Implement Fast Feedback Tools: Integrate a tool or app that enables team members to initiate short communications with other internal partners. Examples include productivity tips and “job well done!” messages.
- Invite Mobile Collaborations: Encourage work-related discussions during a brisk walk around the company campus. Remote team members can take a walk around their respective neighborhoods.
- Promote Recognition of Others’ Contributions: Recognize another team member’s success, which provides them with a welcome acknowledgment of their hard work. This recognition can set the stage for other positive conversations.
- Add a Social Component to Meetings: Before or after a meeting, schedule a small “social time block” so team members can get acquainted and discover common ground.
- Uplift Overwhelmed or Struggling Team Members: Encourage team members to support colleagues dealing with workplace challenges. Whether the team member is overwhelmed, or a particular project isn’t going well, empathy and support can help keep them focused on the goal.
Adapting Workplace Friendships to the Work Setting
Every work environment has defined parameters and an accepted work style. Therefore, Dr. Leen Kawas recommended that team members who plan to develop workplace friendships ensure these alliances adhere to accepted professional and personal