Female friendship makes the world a better place in so many ways – including our experience at work.

A recent study found that women are more likely to make friends at work than men. According to 75% of women polled, these friendships expand to outside the workplace. With so many of us seeking friendship at work, how can it help us advance, as well as enrich our wellbeing?

According to holistic career and life coach Nikki Innocent, fostering female friendship is a revolutionary, rebellious act against patriarchal norms at work. She believes that it works to “decondition” the beliefs set by our “current patriarchal structure” when women “witness themselves stepping confidently into their role within the workplace and witness those that look like them do the same”. Nikki adds that friendship in the workplace can also work to reduce the pressure to people please others.

She adds that friendship contributes to two important components of women’s success in the workplace, community and confidence. According to KPMG’s 2019 Women’s Leadership Study, 67% of women reported they’d learned important lessons about leadership from other women, while 82% of professional women believed that networking with female leaders will help them advance in their career.

Encouraging friendships in the workplace can also help to promote a healthier working culture, creating more creative and collaborative space for all.

“When people are friends, they tend to be kinder, more supportive, and encouraging of one another,” coach and relationship expert Courtney Boyer explains. “If you know that the people you’re working with aren’t going to berate, belittle or judge you, you’re more likely to participate and contribute.” Nikki adds that friendship can help to combat stress in the workplace, calling it “one of the most powerful responses we have to metabolise stress”.

Close bonds between employees can also be helpful from a business perspective. Nikki explains that friendship is “vital both for psychological and emotional components of the retention landscape”, i.e. employees staying at a certain workplace longer. “It can also build resilience in times of heightened stress,” she says. “In a time when uncertainty in life and the workplace is all too common, having people you can rely on to navigate the bumpy reality of change is vital.”

As well as contributing to the bigger picture, friendships in the workplace can help to improve day to day output. “Even if you don’t enjoy the actual work you do, being with people you do enjoy can make a huge difference,” Courtney says. “You’re more willing to show up (mentally and physically) because there’s a built-in accountability and a desire to stay connected to that support group.”

Of course, for many segments of society, minority groups such as the LGBTQ+ community, people of colour, people of a lower social class, anyone who doesn’t always feel that they fit society’s dominant mould in fact, friendship can be a lifeline in the workplace.

“Close friendships fuel feelings of safety and when we feel safe, we move out of a survival mode and into a thriving mode,” Courtney says. “Close, healthy friendships help to regulate our nervous system which makes us feel calm and gives us clarity. Members of minority groups may already feel marginalised in public spaces. Knowing that they have a support system has the potential to empower them to be more vocal and feel heard.”

Of course, not all of us feel confident forging friendships in the workplace, whether that’s due to social or personal speed bumps or the fact that you’re self-employed and there are less people immediately around you to befriend.

“There will be an element of vulnerability required to form friendships, whether you work alone or with many,” Courtney says. “Fake it til you make it is great advice – and knowing that it will be uncomfortable at first is helpful, but doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to put yourself out there. Believe that you deserve a wonderful support system and you will attract one.”

Nikki recommends asking colleagues for their perspective or advice as a way of finding a common thread between your experience of work and theirs. She also advises that offering support if they look like they might need it might spark a deeper bond.

Self-employed people may encounter more challenges forging workplace friendships, but Nikki says you can use the same framework that employed people might, but with the added challenge of “carving out the time and energy to ensure you prioritise sharing space with people you’d like to build work friendships with”. Co-working spaces and local meet-ups might be a great plan to start. She adds that finding ways to collaborate with other self-employed people is a great way to foster friendship within a working dynamic.

Of course, there are challenges and complications when it comes to seeking out and nurturing friendships in your working world. For instance, there might be more sources of conflict or tension if one of you gets promoted or involved in other more political elements of the workplace. This can become more of a prominent issue, the longer you work somewhere.

In order to combat this, Nikki recommends “focusing on the complementary strengths, skills and interests that you and your work friends have” and “celebrating where each of you excel differently from each other”. This way, these practices will come into place if you move into differing positions of superiority and power at work. Crucially, they should also help avoid us “resorting to the old patterns of hierarchical superiority that devalues your connection and, I believe, both of you individually,” she says.

“This is also especially important for women because we are pitted against each other due to the deep-seated forces of patriarchy,” Nikki adds. “So if our act of resistance is to support one another, it can be incredibly empowering to actively talk about that shared goal.”

A change in you or a friend’s position in the work hierarchy or even a move across departments might make you reconsider the friendship. “It can make it very obvious if your relationship was one that was held together by proximity and shared daily experiences,” Nikki says. “That doesn’t mean that the relationship is doomed when the change occurs, it just needs more intentional maintenance and evolution for the new circumstance.” It’s also worth bearing in mind that not all friendships (in the workplace or otherwise) have to last forever for them to be meaningful and to have supported you and added to your life.

Nikki adds that forging a friendship – a very personal experience – can be difficult in a professional, not personal setting. “It is important to understand that the workplace is built on a very transactional operating system – and friendship, if healthy, isn’t transactional, it's instead transformational,” she explains, recommending practising “friendship resilience”.

Examples of this resilience include making a habit of sharing in each others’ celebrations, seeing a friend’s win as a win for yourself, dedicating time to regroup and discuss awkward topics and feelings and even devising shared language or code words for sticky subjects.

Finally, Courtney stresses the importance of “healthy boundaries” when fostering friendships at work. “It’s likely that you’ll spend a lot of time with these people and if you don’t handle conflict in a productive way, it can lead to tension, resentment and dissociation.”

Of course, the rewards from strong friendships in the workplace can’t be denied, so building a framework of “transparency, healthy communication and strong boundaries” is key, according to Courtney.

Building this framework, she says, will “help promote the overwhelming benefits that friendships in the workplace can bring”.