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Meet, text, or video chat with potential new friends in real-time, anywhere you are. It’s important to note that in-person employees (39%) were also more likely to make most of their friends at work, compared to fully remote employees (22%). Many members of Gen Z have graduated into a remote-heavy workforce, which could explain their lack of work friends.
49% identified as male, 48% identified as female, and 3% identified as nonbinary or preferred not to say. 10% were Baby Boomers, 23% Gen X, 48% Millennials and 20% Gen Z. Next, we took a step back to consider whether friends at work matter. We found that coworker friendships matter a lot when it comes to creating a happy, energizing and creative work environment. In fact, 95% of respondents said that having a friend at work makes them feel happier.
Attend Industry Events
Co-working spaces can be a great place to make new connections and meet other remote workers in real life. One of the most commonly reported issues is discovering ways to stay connected. Maintaining your personal and professional relationships when you’re not in the same building as anyone else requires a level of focus you didn’t have to expend previously. Making an effort to get to know more people at your job can pay off in the long run. Not only will you have more friends, but you’ll also be able to tap into a larger network of people when you’re working on a big project or need help with something. And let’s face it, we all need someone to talk to sometimes- even if they’re just sitting at the desk next to us.
But volunteering at work is also a great way to how to make friends when you work from home more people within your organization and develop friendships. This is perhaps the best way to draw in a crowd of like-minded people who share your passions. Post a bulletin via your organization’s intranet or see if you can get a mention in a company newsletter to gauge interest.
Does working from home make it harder to make friends?
Become a regular somewhere, and meet the other regulars. Get to know the people that are literally in your area by going out for coffee and walks, and being open-minded. If you’re working remotely for some, or all, of the time it’s just as easy to schedule online social events, such as virtual team lunches or a weekly book club. As a remote worker, you won’t have the same opportunities for spontaneous workplace interactions, so it’s especially important to put social events in the calendar. Interestingly, this need for human interaction has not changed even in the era of remote work. With more and more people working remotely, you would think that our interactions with others would lessen.
- Perhaps on a corporate social networking site or an instant-messaging platform, connect with virtual coworkers and other professional contacts throughout the day.
- Plus, you can bounce ideas off each other and get help when you need it.
- You’ll struggle to make friends at work if interactions with your colleagues are limited to formal project meetings, weekly team catch-ups, or client pitches.
- Reconnecting with old high school and university friends can be a great way to rekindle old friendships when you work from home.
- Let your personal passions drive your search for a club, meet up group or location that fills your heart with joy.
- There are plenty of online communities, apps, and websites that can aid you in your search to find a friend.
Whether you’re going to a scheduled mass play date or attending your kid’s sporting events, you can chat with other parents. At the very least, you have something in common as an icebreaker. Nothing says that you need to go out into the real world necessarily to learn how to make friends when you work from home. Sometimes, it’s the easiest and most obvious things that work better than others. When we filtered our results for workers who are currently fully remote, the average number of work friends dropped by 33%, from 3 to 2.
Try Coworking Spaces
Instead, I try to find out where culinary professionals are gathering and learning about their craft. An ERG is an employee-led, voluntary society designed to connect and support a group of workers who share a particular characteristic, such as ethnicity, gender, race, or sexuality. Your organization might, for example, have an ERG for its LGBTQ+ community, one for Jewish employees, or one that serves women. Well, easy for me to write, not necessarily easy to put into practice. I also started a job during the pandemic, and the first steps were hard, but I’m glad to say I’ve made more friends in a year here than I could have ever imagined.
Now, I use social media to connect and suss out bloggers and others nearby. When I was in Tbilisi, Georgia, I shared an Instagram photo of a gorgeous church there and a local woman commented to welcome me to her city. That was the opening and I asked her if she was keen to meet for wine. We talked for many hours and it was such a wonderful way for me to make a new friend and also learn more about her culture and country’s history.
