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Do companies lack common sense? Friends at work

Today an article appeared on Bloomsburg about a Microsoft survey, which showed the dissonance between employee satisfaction and management perception of their satisfaction. Today I will choose to talk about the role of friendship in a work environment. 

When I decided to leave my permanent job for a freelance career, the thing I expected to miss the most was easy access to friends at work (no, not colleagues but friends at work). That I will miss them was common sense to me. Yet no HR or top CEOs from even the best business schools ever tie work satisfaction with having friends at work. Our methodologies and cultures at work in the elearning industry are just marginally better than those of industrial workers in an assembly line. In such an environment, friends at work lightened drudgery at work. A cup of tea, a laugh, the occasional unburdening of family woes among friends or the exploration of dreams can make the workplace bearable. 

How often do organisation consciously recognise, reward and build systems that allow friendships to flourish? It may seem like a new idea but it isn't. During my parent's time, companies invited families for picnics, organised fire and lights events during Diwali, paid for movie and concert tickets, organised sport events, paid for complete hospitalisation, etc. 

If corporates recognised the role of friendships at work, they wouldn't need a Microsoft survey to realise that Covid 19 had breached that access to friends at work and lowered employee satisfaction. You cannot expect the impersonal, online interactions between colleagues with digital tools to bridge that gap. And, if friends from the company I worked in 12 years ago, still talk and message me outside the Facebook or WhatsApp type of interactions, it is because we are friends and not colleagues.
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