Encouraging friendships at work
In the last post I talked about a dichotomy—an idea with two parts that are very different and may be opposites from each other: 1) People don’t want to socialize after work, but 2) they probably won’t quit if they have a friend at the company (Gallup poll). Here’s another finding from a Capterra survey: “Relationships with co-workers” and “recognition on the job” are least likely to lead to employee satisfaction, while “money earned” and “work-life balance” are tops for satisfaction.
So, considering these results, two companies are taking action: To convince people to take jobs, KPMG (an accounting firm) recently sent their group of 2800 interns to a training facility on a lake with all kinds of opportunities for socializing and networking, hoping that the interns who got job offers would accept. And Salesforce.com, a software company, uses a retreat center for some of its training sessions to encourage bonding among employees over yoga, hiking, and other fun stuff, hoping that they will be less likely to quit. It looks like fostering friendship in the workplace is a new way to do business.
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