We’ve all had or have a job that strictly forbids employee fraternization, whether it be between peers or supervisors and subordinates. It’s been a fact of life for the working man and woman since the dawn of clip-on ties (1928…it’s an estimation).

However, it is probably also one of the most frequently broken rules of the workplace. As the Johnathan Fields business blog Awake At The Wheel reports, Gallup research has demonstrated a variety of statistics linking strong interpersonal relationships at work to productive and satisfied employees.

According to the Tom Rath Book Vital Friends, people who claim to have a “best friend” at work are seven times more likely to be engaged in their jobs than those who do not.

But, as Fields writes in his recent article “Friends at Work, Divine or Disaster?,” fostering a comfortable social environment within a business can lead to serious problems.

Inevitably, friendships will not form between every pair of employees, which is especially disturbing when the big wigs think about supervisor-subordinate bonds. They fear hostility over perceived (or actual) favoritism, loss of morale, inefficiency taking over while workers socialize and perhaps losing good employees if an interpersonal relationship falls apart. Of course, additional concern for things like sexual harassment lawsuits clearly runs rampant when discussing this issue.

What it boils down to is whether or not the happiness of the staff matters more than the risk associated with “allowing” (quotes because it really can’t be stopped) employees to bond with each other and grow to be more than simply coworkers.

Fields doesn’t exactly offer any answers in his article as he chooses to focus his attention on calling his readers to voice their own opinions. It becomes clear that this is a personal choice for the individual worker (and business owner) to make for his or herself.

To read more and gather the opinions of other readers, check out the full article here.

Image: Around the Loop

[tag] Awake At The Wheel, Johnathan Fields, Vital Friends, Tom Rath, Marcus Buckingham, First Break All the Rules, coworkers, relationships at work [/tags]

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