For some, losing this social aspect can actually help separate work from home. It encourages them to find friends outside of the workplace and avoid tying their identity to their work life. This can help better create work-life boundaries and management strategies for dealing with the stress of work. Limiting social interactions can even help with productivity and independent work.
Whether you’re sending a text message or voice message through a program like Voxer, it’s the remote equivalent of popping into someone’s office to tell them a quick story on your way to the bathroom. We become friends with the people we see all the time – our next-door neighbor, the college classmate who sat next to us in the lecture hall, or the colleague who shared our cubicle wall. Simply focus on leaning into connections with people you vibe with. Being the new person at work can definitely be intimidating. You don’t know anyone, you’re not sure what the office dynamics are, and lunchtime is about making awkward eye contact with people while you try and figure out where to sit. Unfortunately, we’ve all been there, and sometimes the feeling can last longer than you might expect.
Remote Work Tips
Whether you’re brand new to business or established and ready to grow, B-School will challenge you to execute at your highest level. As infections dropped, people had somehow forgotten how to make friends when you work from home how to return to their normal lives. So now is the time to shed your COVID-induced anti-social behavior. Just change a few of your habits and force yourself out the door.
The internet provides opportunities to make friends without leaving the house. But just like in “real life,” you have to be an active participant online if you want to make friends. If you spend most of your online time reading people’s posts or watching videos, it’s going to be challenging to make real connections.
Turn your solo hobbies into social ones
It’s no secret that running your own business, and running it from home, can be isolating. As awesome as it is to get work done in your pajamas, there comes a time when you start becoming a little desperate for some human interaction. The best way to meet people when you work from home is by picking a hobby that you can do alongside other people. The downside is this can mean sacrificing a lot of free time, but the upside is that it’ll also get you out in the community. But you want to know what makes people really interested in you? I mean, you could offer them a genuine compliment, you could ask some questions, or have some fun with some go-to icebreakers.
Research has shown that work colleagues typically comprise a large amount of friendship and acquaintance social circles and these work relationships can be crucial to your health and overall wellbeing. When you don’t have access to the day-to-day camaraderie you would normally get in the office with other people, meeting new people becomes harder. If you work remotely from home full time, meeting new people and forging new friendships can get a little tricky. Below I share some unexpected and useful tips on how to make friends when you work remotely. Feeling a sense of community is a surefire way to overcome lonely feelings while making new friends.
Find a local group to join
Not only that but when you make new friends with like-minded people who are in the same industry as you, you will get a buddy that you can bounce ideas off of. This will keep the channel of communication open so that your new found friendship is not just a one hit wonder. Whatever your niche is, chances are there is a professional development conference that caters to it. One of the best tips for making new friends when you work at home is getting yourself out there for these professional events. Some helpful thing to do would be to start looking up professional events that pertain to your area of expertise. Once you have narrowed them down, you have opened up an opportunity to mingle and network with like-minded people.