Two in five of your colleagues are friendless at work
Lonely lunchtimes are the order of the day for many, according to new research suggesting that two in five people have no friends at work.
Some 42 per cent of people don’t count any workmate as a close friend, but 58 per cent have at least one friend at work, a study by relationship and counselling charity Relate found.
Spending the majority of our time working also means spending the majority of time with colleagues rather than with friends- 62 per cent have daily contact with co-workers compared to 16 per cent with friends.
Whether you have friends in the workplace or not has little impact on our general attitude to workmates, however, as the majority of people said they have a good relationship with both their boss and colleagues.
Only two per cent said they had a bad relationship with colleagues and, when it comes to bad bosses, anyone who manages others can also breathe a sigh of relief- just seven per cent said they got on badly with them.
Good working relationships have a positive impact on our wellbeing too. Relate found 87 per cent of those who described very good relationships at work also felt good about themselves, but this dropped to 83 per cent and 69 per cent respectively for those who described relationships as merely good or average.
The new study, “The Way We Are Now”, surveyed more than 5,000 people across the UK to find out more about their relationships with work colleagues, as well as family, friends and partners.