Should Leaders Be Friends With Their Team?
As an HR leader, you’re always wearing your HR hat – sometimes with your friend hat on top. But professionalism has to come first.
If you have ever listened to the Uncharted Podcast, there is a good chance you have heard Andy or myself say “Should is a dangerous (and maybe 4 letter) word.” However, the soapbox on that is for an entirely different blog post. I was marinating on a popular question that I have been asked in a lot of different ways since becoming a manager. The question, however it might be phrased, boils down to “should human resources (HR) be friends with employees?” I think the reason that question hits home for so many of us lies in the root of our joke about the word should. Because there is no one size fits all answer to this question.
Human resources is an inherently human job. When you work on things like employee benefits, managing people, hiring and subsequently developing those you hire, and payroll, you are 100% bound to learn things eventually that an employee might not share with other coworkers. I don’t know about you, but for me, when someone confides something fairly personal to me, there is an innate, knee-jerk desire to connect with that person on a personal level, even temporarily. It can be hard to avoid building those connections into personal relationships over time. However, anyone with HR responsibilities in practice should absolutely be aware of the boundaries that need to separate HR from any other type of coworker relationship. Here are some ways that you can balance professionalism with friendship in your clinic:
1. Establish clear boundaries
We often do not even realize we might need boundaries in a given situation until the lines have already been crossed. Thinking about how you feel when it comes to friendship, friendliness and relationships with those you work with before you have to cross the proverbial bridge can help avoid headaches. As you form work relationships, make decisions about your personal boundaries and communicate them to your peers as needed.
When I was a young manager, I was invited to a party at my bosses home. I went and immediately felt uncomfortable when I realized that the rest of the people at the party were personal friends of theirs. Every conversation I had involved how I knew them and I spent the whole time talking about work and trying to avoid learning things about their personal lives that I didn’t need to know. I never accepted an invitation again after that and my boss actually commented on it and asked me about it during a review. They were offended I didn’t include myself as they considered me a peer. I had to explain that it was nothing personal but I wanted to keep our professional relationship separate from their personal lives. It was very uncomfortable to have to navigate answering those questions on the spot and during a review, no less.
Since then, I've saved myself the headache and I talk honestly with coworkers about what my boundaries are. Especially because doing so can depersonalize actions (like declining invitations to events outside of work hours) that might otherwise offend someone. Whatever boundaries you choose to set for yourself with your team, communicating clearly what they are can help set limits that help you and your team get along more smoothly.
2. Don’t Play Favourites
A big time gopher trap for friendships with someone responsible for HR in a clinic is a perception of employee favourtism. If the hospital administrator, manager, medical director or practice owner in charge of human resources has close-knit friendships with certain members of the team, it may be perceived that they are giving more opportunities and less discipline than the rest of the team gets. We see this all the time in tech-doctor relationships where members of the team think Dr. Roark gives technician Anna all the best surgeries to work on with him. Or the team thinks that I let Christy have Saturdays off and everyone else has to work them just because she and I are in the same playground with our kids. These situations have consequences to both parties. Not to mention that eventually, HR may have to deliver difficult news like disciplinary action, layoffs, reduction in hours etc. to someone they consider a friend.
If you are responsible for HR in your practice, part of your job within your friendships is to ensure that both yourself and the employee you have a relationship with are mature enough to understand that your professional roles have to take priority over friendship at work. And that if there are issues or difficult decisions to be made, you have to step in with your HR hat on and do your job. It has bitten me in the butt more than once when I have had to make adjustment to hours or write someone up who I had a relationship with because the unspoken expectation from the other person was that I might be more lenient or forgiving and not apply the rules evenly across the board to them the way I would the rest of the team. And when I did hold them accountable, it was taken very personally. I will never forget the day I got a call from my coworkers to pick them up and give them a ride back to their car after a night of hard drinking. When I received the call, I was just happy they made the right choice not to drink and drive. It wasn’t until I picked them up and the second the car door opened for them to get in and the stench of booze poured off their bodies, that I realized the hard decisions were still to come. As they began engaging with me and my children (who were in the car), it was clear to me that they were actually still drunk from the night before. After dropping my kids off at school, I had to tell them that I was going to have to suspend them and send them home for the day because they were violating our policies about being at work under the influence. Our policies mandated being sent home for a day and a write up for violation of the policy. My friends asked “Are you joking? We are fine, you aren’t really going to get us in trouble?” They didn’t have the expectation that I would apply the rules to them, which is part of why they called me for help. It was a hard lesson and it helped me shape my boundaries moving forward on how I discuss my expectations for applying the rules equitably among my teammates, regardless of our personal relationships.
3. NEVER Gossip
When you are a leader in practice, part of your job is to always set an example for what employee behavior should look like on your team. And when there is conduct happening that goes against team agreements or company policies, you are supposed to stop it and enforce the rules. Most people understand that HR can’t discuss certain things they are privy to information about. When you have friends in the company, getting pumped for information can be difficult to avoid. There is an expectation of sharing between friends that requires the kind of boundaries and communication about the boundaries in order to avoid sticky situations.
I remember when I was out to lunch with a coworker. Our kids were the same ages and we got along really well and had a lot in common outside of work. We were eating lunch and she was telling me a story about a technician we worked with. Who, as it turned out, was sleeping with one of the doctors on our staff. Which apparently everyone knew about but me and the practice owners. We had a relationship policy in the practice and everything I had just been told violated like 9 different rules that were a part of that policy. As well as the golden rule we made as a team - No gossiping. You don’t talk about something with someone else unless you have already said the exact same thing to the face of the person it was about, first. I remember sitting in stunned disbelief as she told me the story and asking her “What the hell do I do with that information now? You know I have to report it.” She said “No you don’t, I told you that story as my friend. Not the boss.” We went back to work and it ate at me all day. I wound up calling a friend who was a very experienced manager and asking her for advice. She said something to me that day that has stuck with me. She said “You are wearing your HR hat no matter what. You might just be wearing your friend hat on top of it. It doesn’t mean you don’t need to do your job to be able to sleep well at night.” I realized I had never thought about my role quite that way until that moment. I am an agent of the company any time I am in the company of employees. And the buck stops with me. If I let myself talk about the tech and doctor with my coworker at lunch, how would I feel if people were talking about me behind my back?
When you are in charge of HR for your practice, it doesn’t mean you have to be the bad guy. Or that your office has to be viewed like the Principal’s Office where people only go when they are “in trouble”. You do have to set an example for your team and let your behavior lead by example.
4. Be a Real Person
I’ve beat the drum here that having clear boundaries as a leader in your practice is important. It is also important to remember that anyone involved in HR in your practice is also human. We can’t be robots. We need to be warm, open and caring. Our doors need to be open to our teams when it matters the most. We can still do that and maintain professionalism and boundaries with our teams. Our job is to figure out, on a personal level, within our own teams and the group of people who make them up, how to strike a balance between those two things.
Our number one priority as human resource representatives is to listen and consider the employee’s best interests. We have to make hard choices and decisions that involve being able to step back and take a look at what the people in the business needs and what the business needs. Those two things can be at odds, especially from the team’s perspective. Learning to be human in those moments has been one of the biggest keys to my success. Don’t be afraid to share some vulnerability with your team. Telling them “I don’t have all the answers and I need to consider all the pieces to help make the best decision for everyone” is honest and real and true to both your role as an HR professional and to your team who needs to know you do see them and hear them.
I remember when my practice had grown large enough that we were ready to have a Lead CSR and Lead Technician. We needed to role because I couldn’t manage all the things alone or with my assistant manager anymore and we were having issues on the swing/night shifts that needed closer supervision. My assistant manager and I had been trying to divide and conquer but there were too many hours to cover and not enough of the two of us. I opened the roles to the team first to apply. I had them do a formal application and interview process. One of the candidates from within the team who applied shared a lot of personal information during their interview about their relationship breaking up and being a single parent. They were interested in the job and they were more motivated by the pay increase than the desire to have the role. We finished the interview process and the practice owner said “Well, they really need the job. I think we should give it to them.” One of the questions we asked all the candidates was about scheduling - this lead role was going to require flexibility in schedule to be able to work some with every shift we had in the hospital, which included nights and weekends. This candidate had just told us that they wanted to do the job but would not be able to work varied shifts and in fact needed to make sure they could move to a shorter shift than we offered at the time, to be able to take care of their child transportation. I completely empathized with them and wanted to support them as a human being. Which is where my practice owner was coming from. I also knew my job was to help decide what was best for the hospital. And given that we were having challenges with the swing/night shifts, we needed someone who could be in the clinic at least some of the time during those shifts. Ultimately, I had to consider the long term success for this employee AND for the practice. If we moved them into a role and immediately made exceptions for them, the team who was struggling and needed a leader would have someone put into that role by us and empowered to make change who couldn’t be present for their team during the hours they worked. It didn’t feel fair on either side and it didn’t feel like we would be living up to our core values. I had a follow up conversation with the candidate to ask some questions and determine whether their schedule needs were temporary or permanent as far as they could see. Given that it felt permanent for the employee at that moment, I had to do what was best for everyone and pass on them as a candidate for the role. They were pretty upset about the news. I was able to talk to them about the fact that passing on them for the role meant that while I wasn’t able to increase their pay to a supervisor level, I could perhaps alleviate other stress by discussing flexibility for their schedule because I wasn’t bound to the needs of the supervisor role. And as a member of a bigger team in a job capacity, there was a lot more flexibility for them to make their childcare needs work. It stung and ultimately, it was the best decision for everyone. It was about finding that happy medium between being human, seeing others as human beings and doing the professional job.
Having (sometimes) complicated and always interpersonal relationships is a natural part of being a team and working together. As an HR leader, it is critical that each of us figure out how to strike a balance between friendliness and professionalism. I can’t tell you whether being friendly, friends or inseparable sidekicks with members of your team is right or wrong. There is no “right” answer. There is also no simple formula that you walk through and get the equation to help you stay neutral and do your job. I would say that remembering to set boundaries, talk about them openly and honestly with your team, leading by example with your own behaviours and never forgetting to be human or see the human in others is the perfect place for any one of us to start.
