How to Make Friends When You Work from Home

The remote work trend is becoming more and more common these days. Although most people find it good as it helps them work from their comfort zone, people are increasingly becoming socially isolated. Social isolation often makes it difficult for one to interact with virtual teams. If you have been a victim of it, you must have thought about how to make friends when you work from home.

The sooner you deal with this problem, the better because it may impact the way you perform. You can't have workplace interaction the way people have in a healthy office when you are working from home. If you draw a comparison of work friends vs. real friends, they are not your informal buddies with whom you usually joke around. However, a friendly relationship with them is vital to perform better while working from home.

People who know how to fix miscommunication and better interact with their coworkers usually have more chances to influence and build better teams positively.

A remote worker cannot build such communication because they lose the ability to make friends due to a lack of social interaction. In some cases, if you compare their work friends vs. real friends, they are failing on both sides because they don't know how to make friends while working in virtual teams. We understand this problem.

That's why we are here to help. In this blog, we have shared some of the most important tips that have helped remote workers make friends while working from home. These tips can help you improve your work ethic and motivate you if you feel like you are not motivated to work online anymore. So. Let’s have a look at them! 

7 Ideas for Making New Friends While Working from Home

Here are some motivational tips and ideas that will help you make new friends while working remotely. 

1. Reach Out to Your Virtual Team

It is not possible for you as a virtual worker to visit your coworker's cabin and greet them. However, you can always ping your virtual colleagues and reach out to them. Introducing yourself to your colleagues virtually and greeting them can be a great way to interact with your virtual colleagues.

You can start doing this practice of greeting virtually with your remote teammates and later ping other department workers to have better communication with them. You may plan to set up casual calls where you socially interact with other virtual workers and become friends. 

2. Join or Initiate Virtual Coffee Sessions and Cocktails

If your online team is planning a virtual coffee session or cocktail, you should better not miss it. Offices often organize virtual meetups for remote teams to improve their communication skills. You can avail the full benefit of such events by not missing them.

Even if your team has not arranged any informal coffee sessions lately, you can present the idea to initiate it and enjoy some free time with your remote colleagues. You can share your stories or talk about your hobbies and favorite TV shows during this time to build friendships. 

3. Befriend Your Colleagues on Social Media

If you think that you cannot find enough time with your remote colleagues during work hours, you can think of connecting with them on social media. It can be a great way to interact socially with new people if you wonder how to make friends when working from home.

YourYour colleagues who have hobbies like blogging or cooking will love it when they see a thumbs-up from you on their social media. This can be a great way to motivate them and yourself to stick with their hobbies, create a better work-life balance, and build better bonds with colleagues. 

4. Create a Social Slack Channel with Your Colleagues

When you work remotely, you usually communicate with each other on slack. What you can do is take this as an opportunity to interact socially with your virtual colleagues. You may create a socializing channel on slack or Microsoft teams and use this space to befriend your colleagues.

You may think of sharing things like your pet's pictures or tips on growing some houseplants. People who love cooking may share recipes and dinner ideas. Also, those of you who enjoy reading books may talk about your interests in this space. If you are a true bookworm at heart, you would also love to initiate a hybrid book club. 

5. Try Meeting Your Coworkers in Person If Possible

If you compare virtual work friends vs. real friends, the real ones are always better because you interact with them better. Planning an in-person meetup with your remote team can help you make real friends. You often leave this idea behind when you work remotely, and it creates a communication gap.

Planning a few in-person meetups after every month can help you fill this gap and have a healthier relationship with your colleagues. You might be tired of the virtual coffee sessions every week, so take this meetup as an opportunity and go to some café to have some coffee with your colleagues. 

6. Be Consistent with Your Social Interaction Sessions

Everything requires consistency, and so do social interaction sessions. If you have remote friends who are friendly and love to socialize, you will have to try and stay consistent with the online and in-person meetup sessions.

People like those colleagues who make an effort to build better communication with their peers. So, never miss those cocktails and coffee sessions that your virtual teammates plan, and attend the in-person sessions too so that you get to interact better with your teammates and work on official tasks with more focus later. 

7. Play Virtual Team Building Games

In addition to all the effort that we are advising you to make, playing virtual team-building games can be a great way to build better connections with your virtual team. If your team is planning a virtual team-building game session, we would advise you not to miss it and use this opportunity to interact actively with your remote team. 

Bottom Line

You can surely make friends while working from home if you follow the tips we shared above. We hope that now you have a complete idea of how to make friends when you work from home. So, befriending your virtual teammates will now become a simple task for you.