Why Friendships at Work Matter

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

Do you have a best friend at work?  It is a question on the Gallup Q12 employee engagement survey. During leadership sessions, I am sometimes asked why that question is even on the survey. The answer was easy. Gallup has found staff who have a best friend at work are more engaged and less likely to leave.

Fast forward to today, feelings of connectedness are missing on most nursing teams. During COVID, nursing teams lost the rituals that held them together. Teamwork was disrupted. There is now an endless churn of travelers on some nursing teams. Recent graduates join teams and don’t feel like they are part of anything special. Seasoned nurses don’t invest in new nurses because they assume most will be short-timers.

New Gallup research demonstrates that if anything – having a best friend at work matters more today than ever. They note, ” for many employees, the pandemic caused traumatic experiences and other profound difficulties, particularly for healthcare and other front-line workers and educators. These employees found the social and emotional support from their best friends at work to be more critical than ever to get them through these challenging times.”

Yet fewer and fewer employees report that they have a best friend at work and are more likely to say they are lonely in the work environment. Gallup research indicates that since the pandemic started, there has been an even stronger relationship between having a best friend at work and important outcomes such as employees’ likelihood to recommend their workplace, their intent to leave, and their overall satisfaction with it. Consider the following:

• 44% of staff with a best friend at work are likely to recommend their employer.
• 21% who don’t have a best friend at work report they are unlikely to recommend their employer.
• 49% of those with a best friend at work are not actively looking for other employment.
• 37% who don’t have a best friend at work are looking at other jobs.
• 32% of those with a best friend at work are satisfied with their current role versus only 15% who don’t.

Having a best friend at work can help us navigate the turbulent environment that we are in today and allow us to check our assumptions about our environment. In a recent report by McKinsey, Generation Z  (born after 1997) was found to be more disconnected than any other generational cohort. Nurse leaders are often at a point in their careers where they have solid networks and may not realize how lonely many staff feels at work.

5 Strategies to Consider

1. Promote community-building activities both inside and outside the work environment. I recently spoke with a medical center where they had nurses from their units in teams to build bikes for their local Boys and Girls club. It was an excellent teambuilding session where staff spent time with each other outside the work environment.
2. Consider a Battle Buddy program for new staff. Building on an initiative developed by the US army, battle buddies help each other through difficult situations and stop nurses from self-isolating when things become challenging. The Army learned that even forced friendships are better than no friendships.
3. Help staff establish relationships right from the beginning of the onboarding process – a manager recently told me about a scavenger hunt developed for new teams focused on building relationships. New orientees have four weeks to complete a scavenger hunt where they meet every staff member on the unit and have a question on the hunt guide to ask (nurses on the unit choose the question that they want new staff to ask them about themselves). When finished, they get a prize.
4. Implement a Mentoring Program – The Kaumatua Mentoring Program – a 12-week structured mentoring program now piloted at St. Lucie Medical Center in Florida based on the wise elder’s program used by the Maori tribe in Australia and New Zealand. Seasoned nurses called the Big Ks each mentor three new graduates (the Little Ks) for 12 weeks with structured conversations designed to build relationships and teach the culture.
5. Have a New Staff to the Unit Board where the new staff completes a profile and includes a picture.

We will never overcome the recruitment and retention challenges without fixing the disconnectedness. Promoting the idea of having a best friend at work is an evidence-based strategy worth considering.

© emergingrnleader.com 2022

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