Can’t We All Get Along?: Managing Office Cliques

It’s lunchtime or afternoon break: you head over to the pantry and you see several small groups of your colleagues clumping together in their own little space, chatting about the fun stuff they did over the weekend.

You listen in on the conversations and wonder if you should join in or feel like you’re stepping into ‘secret’ territories, or what is commonly called “office cliques.”

A study by Career Builder finds that 43 percent of full-time private-sector employees in the US say their office is populated by cliques and that it has been affecting workplace culture and their career development negatively.  

Reluctant Adaptive Behavior

It’s common to find employees adapting new behaviors they don’t really want to do, have no interest in, or feel uncomfortable with just to fit into office dynamics. 20 percent find themselves admitting that they’ve done something such as:

• • Watching a certain TV show or movie to discuss the next day (21 percent),
• • Pretending not to like someone or making fun of someone (19 percent),
• • Pretending to like a certain food (17 percent),
• • Taking smoke breaks (9 percent),
• • Hiding political affiliation (15 percent),
• • Not revealing personal hobbies (10 percent),
• • Keeping religious affiliations and beliefs a secret (9 percent).

Solution: Self-reflection

Reflect inwardly from time to time and try to notice if you’ve acquired an office alter ego or if you’ve been presenting two different personas at work and at home. If you can relate to this, then it’s a sure sign you should be re-evaluating your relationship with your work circle.

Exclusive Nature, Being Branded the Same as Your Clique’s Image   

Engaging in gossip, bullying, backstabbing, ostracizing other employees they don’t like, only wanting to hang out with members of the clique, and requiring conformity are just some of the common things office cliques do. When it gets really bad they won’t even know they’ve demoralized someone enough for them to leave altogether.

Whatever the image your clique projects— fashionable slackers, cool bullies, chatterbox, the life of the party, among others— will be put upon you as well, whether or not you actually embody these attributes. This can potentially damage your career development when both good and bad things happen in the company.

Solution: Analysis and Variety

Analyze if you’re in a clique— if you are in a group of friends at work but you’re afraid to speak out about a specific behavior because you don’t want to go against the collective opinion, you might want to rethink your friends at work.

Then, think about bringing variety into your work relationships. Broaden your horizons by spending more time with different people who build you up to slowly lessen your clique involvement and eventually make way for a sensible departure. Allow yourself to develop new interests.

Office Politics, Bosses in Cliques

Even supervisors and the upper management are at times part of cliques, intentionally or not, that can fuel office politics—favoritism, power trips, forcing homogeneity, or driving a small pack of brown-nosers.

Coworkers in a clique meanwhile will tend to cover for another member’s faults and duties, reinforce only each other’s opinions, and fail to take account of non-clique members’ ideas, which leads to subpar output and ineffective teamwork.

Solution: Setting an Example and Clear Enforcement of Policies  

It’s troublesome for the management when one of its executives is part of a clan as the right behavior, atmosphere, and cultural tone should start from here. If you are part of management, you must show transparency, inclusion, and open dialogue in meetings to gain their employees’ trust and fuel their ideas.

You must be a good listener and show them you value their opinion even when you may have to disagree. Promote healthy competition and collaboration while rewarding individuality, innovation, and authenticity.

You should also have clear policies set about digital etiquette to avoid cyberbullying, guidelines on how to report harassment issues, and develop mentoring programs in HR, investigate employee complaints thoroughly, use standard performance review procedures, and require tangible evidence to support a promotion or pay raise.

Create interactivity—team lunch or after hours occasionally but don’t make participation mandatory. Celebrate everyone’s success and don’t just praise a few.

And while being part of a clique may seem fun, provides a safety net, even advantageous connections—most especially for the socially conscious generation of millennials— there’s absolutely no rule that you should be part of one to ensure your happiness and place at work.

 

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