{"id":4649,"date":"2025-05-08T20:12:24","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T20:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=4649"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:42:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:42:21","slug":"why-small-talk-is-social-glue-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/why-small-talk-is-social-glue-at-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Small Talk Is Social Glue at Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Small talk is crucial for employees to bond with each other and form a cohesive organizational culture\u2014and hybrid and even fully remote work arrangements don\u2019t change that.<\/p>\r\n

Academy of Management Scholar Jessica Methot<\/a> of Rutgers University and the University of Exeter\u2014who coauthored an Academy of Management Journal article <\/a><\/em>on that topic with Emily Rosado-Solomon<\/a> of Babson College, Patrick Downes<\/a> of the University of Kansas, and Allison Gabriel<\/a> of Purdue University\u2014said that they collected the data about why and how small talk can be an effective method for employee bonding before the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cA lot of the conclusions that we drew about the impact of small talk on employees were seemingly turned on their head when everyone started working remotely,\u201d Methot said. \u201cThe questions people asked us were, \u2018How do we do this if we\u2019re working remotely? How do we reconstruct these work relationships if we can\u2019t just bump into each other in the hallway?<\/p>\r\n

\u201cIt was a great challenge for us to think through, \u201cHow did small talk change during Covid, and what does this look like now in the post-Covid age?\u201d she said. \u201cIt is so prevalent that we wanted to understand what was happening in organizations: Was it good? Was it bad? Is this something that we should be encouraging? Do we have any control over it whatsoever?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Small talk can be a polarizing topic. Some people love it, while others hate it.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also sometimes cultural, where having chit-chat feels superficial and condescending and unnecessary, where others feel as though, if you don\u2019t chit-chat with them, you\u2019re not even acknowledging their presence, and it\u2019s rude,\u201d Methot said. \u201cIt makes up a really large chunk\u2014about one-third\u2014of our conversations, and it\u2019s the social glue of the workplace.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cSmall talk with our colleagues is a social ritual that many of us had built into our days,\u201d she said. \u201cWe come into the office; we greet people in the morning; we chat with coworkers to pass the time; we take a break to grab a coffee; we reenergize before getting back to work.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWe make small talk in transition periods\u2014we have small talk before going into a meeting, before negotiations, before performance evaluations, and so we also use it to grease the wheels.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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