How to make work friends when your job is virtual
Pizzica has had plenty of conversations with fellow team members that started because of something she or they noticed about their background. That’s hard to recreate in a video chat, but making those connections isn’t impossible. Set your view to gallery mode, and watch your fellow team members. Let’s say you heard a coworker Megan mention in the all-staff meeting that she was late because she was putting her kindergarten son on the school bus for the first time. After the meeting, send her a message telling her you know exactly how that feels – you just dropped your three-year-old off at her first day of daycare.
On a scheduled in-person day, make a plan with your new office friend to check out a new French fry shop in your area, or a brunch place down the block. Check the schedule and see who else is working that day, and if your coworker thinks you’d all click, ask if they’d like to come along. The same thing applies if the roles are reversed, and you’re the one who’s introducing the newbie to potential office friends. Don’t set your sights higher than a three- or four-person hangout, as that could make others in the office feel excluded, especially if you’re working on a team that rarely goes in-person. This has taken a toll on workers, whose profound loneliness is evident not only in the data but the numerous self-reports emerging from media sources of all kinds.
Microsoft’s 2020 Work Trend Index showed that as the pandemic progressed, people discarded their broader networks and relied more on the people in their immediate social circles. To branch back out and meet some friendly faces, you can easily venture outside the office using the office friends you’ve already made. Many different circumstances lead us to want to find and build new friendships.
Connecting with people in smaller groups can create more opportunities for one-on-one discussions. Think there may be other folks in your organization looking for outdoor volunteer opportunities? Start a Slack channel and invite anyone who’s interested to join. Companies across the United States are delaying their back-to-the-office dates. And a recent McKinsey report says that percent of the workforces in advanced economies could work from home between three and five days a week without a loss of productivity. Lots of companies have social channels, alumni channels, and community channels on Slack or Microsoft Teams.
Often, you’ll notice that your work Slack is used for non-problematic small talk featuring memes, inside jokes, or gossip vaguely related to the office. It’s entirely possible that you’re spending up to five hours a day on your work’s Slack or Teams chat, but you’re feeling more disconnected than ever. Imagine if you couldn’t drop by a co-worker’s desk during your very first job, or go out for drinks after work with your colleagues. For some, an entirely remote job can be devastatingly isolating, and sadly, there’s no clear return to work in sight. Children and teenagers find themselves in environments with people their age and with similar interests.
Just try one with open signups, and you don’t have to worry about a team. The league will put you on one, giving you the unique opportunity to meet people with different backgrounds and interests. Talk in a pleasant environment over a glass of protein shake making new friends when you work from home. Regular exercise will help you feel much better, stronger, and stronger.
The #1 Tip on How to Make Friends When You Work From Home: Try New Things
You may not have to go to an office every day, but you can still go to lunch, grab a coffee, or head to a happy hour with local colleagues—or schedule time to do the same if you happen to be visiting. “Meeting up with people in-person helps a lot, especially for extroverts,” Duffy says. This could be a channel to share tips for keeping those houseplants alive, swap recipes and dinner ideas, or talk about the books people are reading.
Your Personality at Work
Maybe the most important takeaway for how to make friends working from home is that it has to coincide with your own interests and work life. That is to say, the best way to socialize might just be by involving others in your work-life balance. You should firmly believe that you’re the biggest advocate of your own happiness and urge to make friends. So even if you’ve suffered from burnout or loneliness, make yourself the harbinger of good things to come. Nothing says that you need to go out into the real world necessarily to learn how to make friends when you work from home.
The more friends we repot, according to one study, the deeper the friendships. That means if you only ever interact at work, it’ll be hard to strengthen your bond. Instead, go to the museum or happy hour or have how to make friends when you work from home your co-worker over for dinner. You can even ask remote colleagues who live in your area to co-work with you. Repotting will elevate the friendship from work bae to full-fledged bud.
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- If you organize an outing that occurs at regular intervals, you’ll be doing everyone a favor.
- If you’re all remote, just extend your ice cream-eating and TV-watching into a group chat form, and see if you all click.
- Truly, jumping back into a social life after so many months of lockdown can be jarring, and everyone’s taking it at their own pace.
- Coworking spaces are designed for remote workers who crave the community of office space.
Try to work in the same library, mall, coworking space, or coffee shop. So you can communicate with people while also making permanent acquaintances. Keep talking and making friends even if you work from home.
What that means is that, just like on Tinder, nothing happens and therefore nothing keeps happening. Even if making the first move feels kind of awkward, try to remember that it will probably feel really nice for the other party if you do. “Most people are flattered when a colleague wants to get to know them better, Cook says. This gives those in your group who crave social interaction something to look forward to and it also helps establish some of time markers that we need as humans to stay happy and healthy. I don’t know about you, but I have had to be really strategic about creating a personal rhythm since the beginning of the pandemic. If you organize an outing that occurs at regular intervals, you’ll be doing everyone a favor.