This is incredibly interesting! And a special thank you for linking to the sources. That’s surprisingly rare, and genuinely appreciated.
If I understood correctly, the KPMG report only included companies with 100+ employees.
That made me especially curious about what changes (or doesn’t) when it comes to workplace friendships in small teams. Or how much more critical does loneliness become in a small team compared to a large organization?
1. Is having a best friend at work as important as being friendly enough? Perhaps it's the level of connection one feels that is the better 'metric' or how well they belong at large in the company.
2. This is only Gallup's data ("7 times more likely to be fully engaged"). Correlation or causation? Alternative models of engagement focus on things that are reliably linked to engagement measures overall, namely how proud you are to work at a company, how committed you are, how motivated you are etc (say/stay/strive). If those things are evident, it's possible the friendship piece becomes a beautiful bi-product.
3. I would also state that friendship means different things to different people at work - the cognitive model of response is not as clean as the result it purports
4. "Work can deliver on all these things" yes it can - but work should not be the only source of them or should not overweight the friendships in the workplace v outside. Simone Stolzoff's book "The Good Enough Job" is a great straightener on this front. Also, nothing wrong with not seeing a close friend for over a year. The strongest friendships can manage that.
I completely agree! I’ve written about my work friend here: https://substack.com/@sj122/p-186953688
Wow! Just joining you here now Bruce but so glad to be reading your stuff again. The stats on soft skills are a real eye opener!
Thanks Delia - always good to see an old Twitter conection discover I've been posting here.
This is incredibly interesting! And a special thank you for linking to the sources. That’s surprisingly rare, and genuinely appreciated.
If I understood correctly, the KPMG report only included companies with 100+ employees.
That made me especially curious about what changes (or doesn’t) when it comes to workplace friendships in small teams. Or how much more critical does loneliness become in a small team compared to a large organization?
This is really, really interesting. Thank you.
A fantastic and thought-provoking article!
A few gentle pushbacks though:
1. Is having a best friend at work as important as being friendly enough? Perhaps it's the level of connection one feels that is the better 'metric' or how well they belong at large in the company.
2. This is only Gallup's data ("7 times more likely to be fully engaged"). Correlation or causation? Alternative models of engagement focus on things that are reliably linked to engagement measures overall, namely how proud you are to work at a company, how committed you are, how motivated you are etc (say/stay/strive). If those things are evident, it's possible the friendship piece becomes a beautiful bi-product.
3. I would also state that friendship means different things to different people at work - the cognitive model of response is not as clean as the result it purports
4. "Work can deliver on all these things" yes it can - but work should not be the only source of them or should not overweight the friendships in the workplace v outside. Simone Stolzoff's book "The Good Enough Job" is a great straightener on this front. Also, nothing wrong with not seeing a close friend for over a year. The strongest friendships can manage that.