Given that many of us spend more time at work than we do at home or in our personal lives, it’s no surprise that we build up friendships to help make our careers go with a bang. And a new survey by LinkedIn has found that more than half of UK professionals have a close friend (or friends) at work – almost twice as many as have a mentor.

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index survey found that people across the board are likely to say they have friends in the workplace. But younger people are more likely to say that they need work friends: 61% of Gen Z respondents gave this answer, compared to a third of baby boomers and less than half of Gen X, both of whom are likely to have connections and external friendships built up over the years.

The pandemic has played no small role here, not only through the enforced isolation of multiple lockdowns, but also as hybrid and remote working have become more commonplace and boundaries between work and home tech have blurred. Whereas older generations could leave work at the office, we’re more likely to have clients on WhatsApp and follow our colleagues on Instagram. And even in the office, you’re likely to ‘hop on’ a Zoom or Teams call.

This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. What is networking, after all, but connections with people you get on with? Research by Gallup in 2022 found that people with a best friend at work were more likely to enjoy their job, work smarter and achieve better results – and were less likely to leave their jobs. There is an element of gender at play here, too. In the LinkedIn survey, women were more likely than men to say they have close friends at work (48% against 38%) and to say they need them. Just a fifth of men believe they need work friends, compared to almost a third of women.

However, that strong correlation between good relationships and job satisfaction would suggest what many of us have long known – that working with people you like makes everything that bit smoother. Work friendships are worth investing in, whether as a manager or in your own day-to-day. It can just be that nice old routine of getting a coffee or a cuppa. No icebreakers needed.

Images: Getty