Comments on: Instead of Being Friends With Your Employees, Do This https://www.evilhrlady.org/2022/07/instead-of-being-friends-with-your-employees-do-this.html Everything to make HR better Wed, 27 Jul 2022 13:56:31 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 By: James https://www.evilhrlady.org/2022/07/instead-of-being-friends-with-your-employees-do-this.html#comment-234060 Wed, 27 Jul 2022 13:56:31 +0000 https://www.evilhrlady.org/?p=6709#comment-234060 I think you’re looking at the wrong angle on this problem. The issue isn’t that people don’t know how to maintain polite professional relationships. It’s that they don’t have a peer group within the company with which to make friends. Especially with WFH being so common these days, managers are increasingly isolated. They don’t have the opportunity to build relationships with people where friendships are not problematic. In the Before Times the company I work for had monthly meetings for all the project managers, in theory to discuss schedule and workload, but in reality to create exactly this sort of environment–a place where PMs can hang out with other PMs and build relationships. (Plus, the office manager always made sure there were leftovers for the rest of the office. )

If you put a human being into a group of other human beings, and isolate them from other groups, you don’t get to act surprised when said human builds friendships with some people and not others. If you want your managers to not be friends with their direct reports, create systems that allow them to build friendships with other managers.

]]> By: BethRA https://www.evilhrlady.org/2022/07/instead-of-being-friends-with-your-employees-do-this.html#comment-234055 Tue, 26 Jul 2022 18:49:51 +0000 https://www.evilhrlady.org/?p=6709#comment-234055 This is such a great explanation of how to maintain good professional boundaries but still keep the “human” in “human resources.” So much more helpful than (the true, but useless” “HR doesn’t get to have friends.”

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