{"id":4602,"date":"2025-05-08T18:46:50","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T18:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=4602"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:41:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:41:33","slug":"wfh-vs-hybrid-vs-rto-and-work-friendships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wfh-vs-hybrid-vs-rto-and-work-friendships\/","title":{"rendered":"WFH vs. Hybrid vs. RTO and Work Friendships"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Organizations\u2019 policies on work arrangements, from fully remote to in-office five days a week or somewhere in between, affect how colleagues form friendships\u2014and how strong those workplace relationships end up being.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cEven in remote work, we\u2019re seeing more personal details about people\u2019s lives when they\u2019re working from home and they don\u2019t blur their background, and their kids or their pets come into view, and we start talking about more personal topics, and they are developing friendships with people who they maybe have never even met in person,” said Academy of Management Scholar Jessica Methot<\/a> of Rutgers University and the University of Exeter.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhat we understand about friendships is that they largely form out of being in the same place at the same time, proximity, frequency of interaction, having shared interests or similarities, and so this is obviously quite convenient in an office space,\u201d she said. \u201cSo many offices have strategically designed their workspaces to promote this type of interaction\u2014it\u2019s a breeding ground for friendships to emerge.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Methot said that when employees spend significant time with colleagues in a shared space, it\u2019s likely that they\u2019re going to develop friendships with at least some of them.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWe say to coworkers, \u2018Hey, do you want to grab a drink after work, or do you want to go take a break and have some coffee?\u2019\u201d Methot said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWe start to broaden the scope of the interactions and the types of communication that we have, the depth of information that we share, and then we start to realize we also share these interests or hobbies, and that’s where these friendships start to evolve,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

A sample of Methot\u2019s AOM research findings:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n