Friend’s Day: connections at work reduce the risk of burnout – 07/20/2023 – Equilibrium

Maria Carolina Malta, 24, thinks that the only reason she didn’t suffer burnout at work at a multinational in Salvador (BA) is because the friends she made at work always offered help when she needed it.

“I have a colleague who works with an operating system and I with another. I learned to work with his, and he with mine, to help us complete the demands”, says the mechanical engineering student who started working remotely in 2020, during the pandemic.

Having at least one best friend in the workplace can make employees have higher overall job satisfaction and be less likely to look for another one, according to recent Gallup research.

In 2022, the percentage of people who considered working in a great environment was 21% among those who did not have best friends in the company and 44%, more than double, among those who claimed to have them.

“When you have a friend at work, there is a relationship of trust. You have emotional support to deal with difficulties, pressure, and you make sure that someone who is in the same context understands you, which generates emotional security”, says Vanessa Cepellos, professor of People and Career Management at FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas).

According to her, themes about relationships in the work environment have gained relevance in the area of ​​human resources, because they permeate the issue of mental health.

A survey conducted by the company Gattaz Health & Results, led by the President of the Board of Directors of IPq-USP (Institute of Psychiatry at the University of São Paulo), Wagner Gattaz, shows that approximately 18% of Brazilian workers suffer from burnout syndrome, professional exhaustion recognized by the WHO (World Health Organization) as an occupational disease.

Social psychologist Luciano Sewaybricker, from the Institute of Psychology at USP, says that having friends in the work environment can help to avoid the disease caused by stress.

“One of the issues associated with burnout is when the person feels that they no longer have strategies to cope with the pressures of work. It helps a lot to talk to other people, to have work partners. To give you an idea, married people in general have a lower incidence of the disease, imagine having a great friend in the work environment”, he says.

In addition to ensuring a person’s permanence in the job and improving well-being by helping to cope with stress, having a good friend in the workplace can influence a successful career, according to research carried out by a group of professors at Rutgers University, in New Jersey, in the United States.

They found that having colleagues who eventually became friends significantly boosted employee performance. Among the reasons cited by the survey are the possibility of asking for help without fear of judgment, receiving information about different areas of the company informally and even being in a good mood more often.

Psychologist Paulo Sardinha, president of ABRH (Brazilian Association of Human Resources), says that the network of trust created by friends at work boosts employees subjectively, improving self-esteem, but also objectively, helping in career development and job opportunities.

“Some people say that at work they want colleagues and not friends. I prefer to believe that when you have good and sincere friendships everyone wins and performs better”, he says.