Instead of Being Friends With Your Employees, Follow this Fifth Grade Teacher’s Advice

Being friends with your direct reports can cause problems. You need to treat everyone fairly, and if you’re besties with one employee and not others, you can be biased. And even if you’re perfectly fair, you still look biased, which isn’t good for morale.

But, what can you be if you aren’t friends with your direct reports? A fifth-grade teacher gave her students these instructions:

You can’t be best friends with everyone but you can

  • notice everyone
  • be friendly to everyone
  • make room for everyone
  • root for everyone
  • empathize with everyone

While the teacher meant this for students, not bosses, all the principles hold. Here’s what it could mean for you at the office.

To keep reading, click here: Instead of Being Friends With Your Employees, Follow this Fifth Grade Teacher’s Advice

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3 thoughts on “Instead of Being Friends With Your Employees, Follow this Fifth Grade Teacher’s Advice

  1. Forget the Supreme Court. They could still surprise us, of course, but their comments during oral arguments do not bode well for the mandate for large employers. It seems like they are likely to strike it down, while, possibly, preserving the mandate for healthcare workers. If the Supremes do so, much of the blood from the additional unnecessary COVID-19 deaths will be on their hands. So much for politicization of the Highest Court in the Land. Meanwhile, employers still need to do the right thing, for their organizations, their employees, their customers and society. With the exception of the rare few unable to be vaccinated — due to medical or religious reasons — require your employees to be fully-vaccinated and boosted. Experience has shown that — faced with a choice between getting vaccinated and losing their jobs — most anti-vaxxers chose vaccination. Keep the unvaccinated few away from the vaccinated, by whatever means necessary. Require masks, social distancing, enhanced hygiene and quarantining (when appropriate). Upgrade workplace ventilation and air filtration, if necessary. Provide free access to tests. Liberally grant leave to those who experience symptoms, test positive, who have been exposed to someone testing positive, who are caring for someone else, etc. We have witnessed two years’ now of inconsistent Government efforts to effectively combat COVID-19. In terms of obtaining vaccines and making them available to everyone, they have done a great job. Most other measures, though — such as testing, contact tracing, quarantining, etc. — have been much less successful. We’re all on our own, and need to accept personal responsibility and do everything in our individual power to combat this pandemic.

  2. Aside from the previous comment by Grannybunny which appears to be from another article topic, unbiased treatment of all employees is a very fair statement. People need to realize that just because you work side by side with others in a workplace doesn’t mandate that you become friends with interest outside of work. I worked many years along side many people but none of them had outside work contact with my personal life with a few exceptions. That made working as a team member of a group a lot easier because there was no emotional connection problems that would affect performance.

  3. Right, there is a difference between being friends and being friendly. And I’ve said for a while, I may think some of my coworkers are dumber than a box of rocks, but they’ll never know it because everyone deserves to be treated respectfully.

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