QUICK TIPS: Do's and Don'ts of Work Friendships

🗓️ Episode Summary:
 In today’s episode, Dr. Jeremy Pollack explores how to build and maintain healthy boundaries between friendship and professionalism in the workplace. It’s easy—and often natural—to form close bonds with coworkers, but without clear boundaries, those relationships can lead to favoritism, burnout, or blurred responsibilities. Learn how to protect your wellbeing while fostering authentic connection.

🔑 What You’ll Learn:

• Why workplace boundaries matter for mental health and team dynamics
  
  
• Five core practices to navigate friendships at work
  
  
• Hypothetical examples that illustrate what healthy boundaries look like
  
  
• A practical “Dos and Don’ts” list to apply right away
  
  
• How to maintain fairness, avoid drama, and still be a kind human
  
  

📌 Key Takeaways:

• Clear priorities prevent work friendships from interfering with job performance
  
  
• Oversharing can damage professional credibility—discretion is powerful
  
  
• Fairness in leadership and decision-making builds team-wide trust
  
  
• Off-hours communication norms reduce stress and emotional fatigue
  
  
• Everyone’s comfort levels with closeness differ—respect their boundaries
  
  

🧰 Tools You Can Use:

• Assertion phrases to protect your time and energy
  
  
• Communication templates for deflecting work talk outside of work
  
  
• A quick-reference Dos & Don’ts list for daily practice
  
  

💬 Favorite Quote:
 “Boundaries aren’t walls. They’re guardrails that keep relationships from veering into discomfort, burnout, or conflict.”

Connect with Me

🌐 Website: PollackPeacebuilding.com

🌐 Dr. Pollack’s Courses: peacefulleadersacademy.com/courses/
📧 Email: support@pollackpeacebuilding.com
📱 LinkedIn: Jeremy Pollack  

📣 Subscribe & Share:
 If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a coworker or team leader. And don’t forget to follow Peacebuilding with Dr. Pollack on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.

#WorkplaceBoundaries #HealthyRelationships #Peacebuilding #Leadership #ConflictResolution #WorkFriends #PsychologicalSafety

Host: Dr. Jeremy Pollack from Pollack Peacebuilding Systems

More from Dr. Pollack:

• Peaceful Leaders Academy
• Conflict Resolution Playbook: Practical Communication Skills for Preventing, Managing, and Resolving Conflict
• FREE e-book: The Ultimate 12-Step Guide to Coworker Mediation: Free Ebook - Pollack Peacebuilding Systems

Connect with Dr. Pollack on social media: Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | LinkedIn

Transcript

0:00

welcome to Peace Building with Dr. Pollock. This is a quick Tips episode where I explore the strategies, psychology and interpersonal tools that help you build better relationships at work and beyond. I'm Dr. Jeremy Pollock. I'm a social organizational psychologist with a specialty in peace and conflict psychology. I'm also the CEO of Pollock, peace Building Systems, workplace Conflict Management, consulting and training firm. Today's episode is about something we've probably all experienced at some point. Navigating the tricky line between friendship and professionalism at work. It's great to meet and make friends at work, of course, but it's important to understand a practice, healthy work, relationship boundaries. How close is too close? When does being friendly start to interfere with professionalism? And how do we maintain respect and trust when things get a little maybe too personal? So let's talk about how to build healthy, respectful work relationships. It is only natural to form bonds with the people we work with. After all, we spend a big chunk of our lives at work, and those connections can be incredibly valuable and fruitful. Close work relationships can boost morale and teamwork, even job satisfaction. I. But without some clear guardrails, workplace friendships can turn into favoritism, gossip loops, and even sources of burnout. So we need to set healthy boundaries, but that doesn't mean keeping people at arms length. It just means creating space where both friendship and professionalism can thrive simultaneously. So what do healthy boundaries look like? I wanna dive into five core coworker relationship best practices that help keep your workplace relationships, both caring and professional. And I'm gonna give you some very easy dos and don'ts for you to keep in mind and hopefully practice. So number one. Be clear about your work priorities. Friendships can lead to blurred responsibilities. Maybe you're helping out a buddy with their tasks while your own deadlines slide, and that's when relationships start to sort of interfere with your role and can eventually breed resentment. So you do want to prioritize your responsibilities first, and you do want to use kind, but firm language. Something like, Hey, I'd really like to help, but I've gotta finish this project before I take anything else on. What you don't want to do is say yes out of guilt or obligation, especially if it's putting your own work at risk. Let's say you and your coworker Sarah, are good friends and she asks you to review her report before a big meeting, but the catch is that you're already behind on your own prep work. So you might say, I wish I could look at it right now. I of course, wanna help, but I'm under a really tight deadline. If you still need help later today, I might have a window this afternoon. That way you are respecting the relationship and also your responsibilities. Okay, number two, be careful of oversharing a little personal. Sharing with coworkers can help build trust, but too much can backfire. When coworkers know every detail of your personal life, it can shift how you're perceived professionally and if things go south in the friendship, all that personal information obviously can become a liability. So do share selectively. Think about how much you want others on your team or in leadership to know about you and do save deeper processing or venting for friends outside of work or maybe even a therapist. What you don't want to do is vent constantly or share intimate details that could become gossip or fuel for drama. Okay, number three, watch out for favoritism. If you're in a leadership role or even just someone with informal influence. Favoritism real or perceived can erode team trust even if you're not technically breaking any rules. Others. Notice if one person consistently gets special treatment. So what you do want to do is of course, offer equal opportunities for feedback, collaboration, and recognition. And you do wanna be transparent in your decisions and invite multiple voices to weigh in when appropriate. You don't want to automatically include your work friends in every project, or leave others out of key decisions. Imagine you're a team lead and your friend Jake wants to be the point person on a new project. You know he's qualified, but so are others. A good move would be to set up a short proposal process and let the team pitch their ideas. That way you remove the perception of favoritism from the equation and keep things fair. Alright, number four, set communication norms, late night texts, venting over drinks, sending memes on weekends. All of that might seem harmless until it's not when work and friendship blend too much outside of work hours. It can lead to emotional burnout or unintended pressure. So what you do want to do is set some off hour boundaries. Let coworkers know when you prefer not to talk about work or respond to messages. And you also do want to separate channels for work versus social communication if possible. I tend to use Google Chat for work, but text messages for personal communication, for instance. You don't want to feel obligated to respond to every message right away. And you also shouldn't expect others to always be on either. Just a quick tool for this, if you're chatting with a coworker friend over the weekend and they bring up work, you might wanna respond with something like, Hey, let's save that for Monday. Trying to unplug a bit for now. It's simple, it's direct, but it's respectful. Okay. Number five, respect differences in boundaries. Not everyone wants A, B, F, F at work. Some colleagues may be polite and warm, but ultimately not really interested in going beyond a professional relationship, and that's okay. So do follow their lead if they're keeping things surface level, match that energy and also offer connection without pushing for intimacy. What you don't wanna do is take it personally. If someone doesn't wanna share their weekend plans or chat after work, say you've invited a new coworker to grab lunch a few times and they've always declined. That could be a cue. Take the hint. Instead of continuing the invites, keep things friendly and professional respect is better than forced closeness. Alright, let me go over a quick recap guide for healthy workplace relationships. The dos and don'ts. All the dos. Do prioritize your own work before helping friends. Set time and topic boundaries for off hour chats. Include others in decisions and projects. Be thoughtful about what you share and match the tone of others' boundaries. What you don't wanna do is share personal drama and professional spaces. Expect constant availability from coworkers. Use friendship as leverage in decision making. Take it personally if others prefer more distance. Or let friendship obligations disrupt your responsibilities. Don't do any of those things. Listen, there's nothing wrong with building genuine friendships at work. In fact, it can make work more meaningful and fulfilling, but those friendships can only stay healthy if we protect them with thoughtful boundaries. Boundaries aren't walls. They're guardrails that keep relationships from veering into discomfort. Burnout or conflict. And in the end, a workplace built on both professionalism and connection is one where everyone can thrive. thanks for tuning into Peace Building with Dr. Pollock. If this episode helped you and think it can help others, please share it. For ongoing learning and to really master your workplace conflict resolution skills, consider joining my Peaceful Leaders Club Club members, get access to exclusive content coaching with me and my expert, conflict coaches, and my entire online course library. You can join@peacefulleadersacademy.com slash club or click on the link in the show notes and if your company needs training or conflict intervention or mediation. Visit us@pollockpeacebuilding.com to learn more about our services. Until next time, take care of yourself and each other.