How important is friendship to you? According to a 2023 Pew Research Center study, 61% of our adults say it is important to have close friends to people live a fulfilling life, which is much higher than the same share of marriage (23 %), have children (26%) or have a lot of money (24%). Meanwhile, almost one-third of Americans feel lonely every week.
In this case, as the work world changes, perceptions of workplace friendship are developing. Work professionals believe that having a best friend has become even more important at work since the beginning of the pandemic and the dramatic growth of remote and hybrid work. Younger generations, such as millennials and Zers, want to curate authenticity and set boundaries. They can prioritize job satisfaction and mental health over other traditional factors. How do these new priorities relate to friendship?
In addition to welfare benefits, friends can also contribute to personal professional development and workplace performance at work. Working like friendship in an environment that promotes vulnerability allows individuals to challenge themselves in ways that otherwise avoid them.
The theme of friendship at work is often focused on the graduate workforce. We argue for the importance of applying the same principles to postgraduate and postdoctoral experience. We discuss ways in which graduate and postdoctoral scholars can benefit from prioritizing friendships and basic interpersonal abilities that can lead to stronger academic experience and support networks.
Challenges and Life after Graduate School
Research shows that strong relationships at work are associated with lower risk of burnout, better mental health and fewer traumatic experiences. Building peer friendships helps graduate and postdoctoral scholars cope with the rigorous nature of their academic training. Although the requirements of such training may make it difficult to determine a person’s social life, the strong work environment in a group environment also provides many opportunities for like-minded individuals to go beyond direct tasks.
Cultivating this relationship helps students and scholars to address the challenges of graduate school and/or their postdoctoral training and bring benefits to support systems. Sometimes it is difficult to understand the uniqueness and specific nature of graduate training. In the same environment, let peers solve challenges and problems with people who understand the environment they are experiencing.
As graduate students and postdoctoral scholars face transition points, whether at the beginning or end of the training, many will leave their current support network and find themselves in need of building new connections. However, achieving friendships can take time and effort to build. Graduate school friendships can provide incredible forms of support for any moment in life and can have a lifetime impact on individuals and careers. In fact, many of us in the workplace are still talking to friends we make during our graduate school year and cherishing the memories we build on understanding and trust.
Strengthen academic research and performance
A large portion of the research on workplace friendship highlights the improvement in performance and productivity due to the existence of this relationship. Happiness can lead to an improvement in overall performance. Building friendships among peers may increase potential collaborators such as co-authors, conference presentations, or interdisciplinary research. It can also happen in the opposite way – starting with professional collaboration can turn into a connection to friendship.
The two of us who wrote this are real examples of how friendship building within the workplace can bring benefits to one’s career development. We met as colleagues and soon discovered common ground between our personal interests and professional goals. Although our work brings us to different institutions, a strong co-creation dynamic emerges from the foundations of our friendship. Our stories are similar to those of many scholars who have written with friends.
Develop transferable skills
Building meaningful connections can also help graduate and postdoctoral scholars enhance key transfer skills associated with preparing for a variety of career paths. Consider three thoughts:
- communicate: For many friendships, there is a sense of comfort over time. This bond encourages easy conversations in other types of interactions. Friends can become a loud board when you try to process your own ideas and insert them into an external audience.
- cooperate: Some graduate and postdoctoral scholars may conduct lonely research with little chance of working in a team or group environment, especially in the humanities. Identifying opportunities to work with friends helps develop capabilities to bring their responsibilities in a wider range of projects. This develops skills that employers often prioritize during the recruitment process: collaboration or teamwork.
- Cultural Ability: Another benefit of fostering workplace friendships is becoming more aware of your life experiences. While this can be done with less personal interaction, friendship allows you to share life stories and perspectives and build deeper connections. Expanding your perspective will make you a stronger academic (during graduate school or postdoctoral training) and professional (regardless of your after-school plan) in an increasingly diverse world.
Impact on career development
Of course, keep in mind the challenges of workplace friendship. These may include: trusting someone too early, oversharing, engaging in gossip and rumors, and stress that forms within the group, which ultimately leads to the rule of some barriers to homogeneity and opportunity through group. There are other challenges for those with marginalized backgrounds. The lack of diversity or representation in certain disciplines can be further isolated and cause greater losses to one’s own sense of well-being.
Those of us who work with this unique population can deliberately work to promote meaningful relationship building and address the challenges mentioned above through educational programs. Professional development activities for marginalized populations often provide an “third space” for individuals to connect in critical, breathe and celebrate, and identify role models and peer collaborators. The University of Maryland Systems’ Graduate Education Alliance and Professors are a great example of community building.
Another viable option for educators and institutions to consider is to leverage the power of peer or perimeter guidance. The research highlights the importance of mentoring signs that recognize the different needs of trainees and the differences in structure or intensity of mentoring relationships. While “vertical mentors” may be more advanced in the organization and provide guidance to trainees based on career development or life stages, “horizontal mentors” refer to peers at similar career levels who share the trainee’s experiences and challenges . At University Park in Maryland University Park, Graduate School has created a near-common mentoring program that focuses on interdisciplinary knowledge sharing between doctoral and doctoral scholars. The program promotes a culture of guidance where both parties can develop self-awareness and build skills that are essential to their respective professions.
Finally, how do graduate students and postdoctoral scholars make friends at work? First, prioritize the relationships in the space you occupy, especially in moments of uncertainty. Then, participate and leverage college programming around well-being, professional development, and guidance to meet people with similar interests and values. Next, take a closer look at your high-touch professional relationship and consider how proximity, similarity, and reciprocity can help you promote the initiation and development of friendships.
