It's natural to befriend bosses and coworkers, or at least be on friendly terms with them, since you spend so much time around them. But work friendships have their own set of rules,
enforced by normative corporate culture that has evolved over decades of office cohabitation. And the advent of social networks has introduced a whole new dimension, which seems to be confusing a lot
of people.
At least, that's the impression I get from a new survey of 1,200 American social media users by Liberty Mutual and the "Responsibility Project." On one hand, a substantial number
of people are becoming online "friends" with their bosses; on the other hand, the survey conducted in January found a majority (56%) think it's irresponsible or inappropriate to be friends with your
boss, versus just 24% who think it's inappropriate to be friends with a peer-level work colleague. More generally, 62% believe it's irresponsible to be friends with an employee who isn't at your
professional level.
Obviously there are some nuances here: There's a big difference, for example, between your boss asking to be friends with you versus the other way around, as many
employees might feel some implicit professional pressure, whereas a boss would presumably feel more at liberty to ignore the request. On this subject, the same survey found 35% of social media users
believe it's acceptable for someone to "friend" their supervisor, compared to 30% who believe it's acceptable for some to "friend" their supervisee.
I can only imagine different workplaces
probably have different standards as well. Thus a goofy, anti-authoritarian Internet startup (you know, with scooters and dogs and ice cream) is probably more relaxed about cross-hierarchy network
connections than, say, a button-down corporate law firm, where every social profile comes with a 15-page liability disclaimer.
One interesting gender-related finding: men are more likely to
"friend" a boss or co-worker than women (40% versus 29%).