HR departments do not need to measure employee engagement by asking whether employees are forming ‘best friendships’ at work, one expert says.

Backtracking on his previous views, HR guru Rodd Wagner has warned HR leaders to give up the time-honoured ‘best friend’ test.

“While a principal of Gallup I prominently defended and helped popularise the concept,” Wagner said in an article for Harvard Business Review.

Wagner said that over time, he has become “increasingly skeptical” of ‘best-friend’ metrics, and so he is now speaking out against them.

“If you’re a leader (or a pollster) looking to measure and boost engagement on your team and in your company, forget about friendship,” he said.

Wagner – who now works as employee engagement practice leader for BI Worldwide – said his reasoning was based on two factors.

“First, because I believe organisations are incapable of manufacturing or improving such intimate personal connections and, second, because subsequent research has shown other (more easily influenced) factors to be more important drivers of engagement and performance,” he wrote.

He argues that HR should not “get involved” in trying to foster friendships.

“Friendships, by their very nature, arise naturally, not as part of a corporate initiative.

"Team-building exercises still play a role in allowing employees to get to know each other better, enhance cohesion and understanding.

“But they don’t make everyone friends. No amount of organisational orchestration can foster those more personal bonds,” he said.

Data from BI Worldwide studies has ranked friendship below collaboration, teamwork and co-worker abilities as way to maintain employee commitment and intensity.

“In fact, when all four of these issues are analysed together relative to employees’ commitment to the company and intensity on the job, the effect of friendships is so weak it sometimes is not even statistically significant.”

Wagner says HR needs to focus on aspects of work that are more closely-linked to performance, such as individuality, pay fairness, transparency, meaning, future prospects, leadership opportunities, recognition, corporate culture, freedom from fear, teamwork, and personal accomplishment.