How Do You Make Friends at Work When You're the New Person?

You make friends at work through small, repeated moments with the same people. Say hello first, ask questions, show up, and give it time. If that sounds simple but feels hard, nothing is wrong with you. Connecting with people is a skill, and PowerProv's workshops help whole teams practise it together.

This guide covers what works when you're starting a new job, why tips alone often fall short, and how to ask your manager for training that helps you and everyone around you.

Is It Good to Make Friends at Work?

Yes. Friends at work make you better at your job and happier doing it. Gallup's research links having a best friend at work to higher satisfaction, more ideas shared, and a lower chance of leaving.

It's also rarer than you'd think. Gallup found that in the US, just two in 10 employees say they have a best friend at work.

You don't need a work bestie in your first month. You need a few people you can ask a question without feeling silly. That's what makes a new job easier to learn, and it's where most friendships at work begin.

Why Does Making Friends at Work Feel Harder Now?

It feels harder because most people now get less practice at it. Writing in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson reported that American teenagers cut their face-to-face socialising by more than 45% over roughly two decades. The numbers come from the American Time Use Survey.

Australian data points to a similar problem. A report by University of Sydney researchers found 43% of Australians aged 15 to 25 feel lonely.

Work has changed too. Hybrid rosters mean fewer shared days, and fewer chances to bump into the same people. So if you've started a job and felt unsure how to talk to anyone, you're in good company. PowerProv has written more about the loneliness data in Australia.

How Do You Make Friends at a New Job?

Start small and repeat it. Work friends are built from lots of short, low-stakes moments, so the goal in your first weeks is to be seen and be easy to talk to.

• Say hello first. Greet people by name every day. It feels minor, and it's where almost every work friendship starts.
• Ask for help. Asking a workmate to show you something gives them a reason to talk to you, and most people like being asked.
• Eat lunch with people. Shared meals are where work colleagues turn into work friends.
• Ask a second question. "How was your weekend?" is small talk. "What did you end up cooking?" is building rapport.
• Remember one detail. Follow up on something a person told you last week.
• Say yes to the first few invites. You can be choosier once people know you.

How Long Does It Take to Make Friends at Work?

It takes about 50 hours together to turn an acquaintance into a casual friend. That figure comes from a University of Kansas study by Jeffrey Hall, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Hall found close friendship takes more than 200 hours.

This is good news when you're starting a new job. Outside work, you have to arrange every one of those hours. At work, you see the same people most days, so the hours add up much faster. If you don't have friends at work after three weeks, you haven't failed. You haven't logged the hours yet.

Being in the same building isn't enough on its own, though. The hours that count are the ones where people really talk, listen and laugh together. That's why a single team lunch rarely changes much, and why it pays to make the most of the time you already share.

Why Don't Tips Alone Fix It?

Tips tell you what to do. They can't give you practice doing it. Knowing you should speak up in a meeting is very different from speaking up when your heart is racing and everyone is more senior than you.

People skills work like any other skill. You get better through repetition, in a setting where getting it wrong is safe. Most workplaces don't offer that. The only place to practise is the real thing, with real stakes, in front of people you want to impress.

That gap is the reason PowerProv exists. PowerProv gives teams a place to practise listening, speaking up and backing each other, before those moments count.

How Does PowerProv Help You Connect With Your Team?

PowerProv runs workshops that let a whole team practise people skills together. PowerProv uses improvisational tools and techniques to build communication, collaboration and confidence. Sessions are for teams of 12 or more, so you learn alongside the people you work with every day.

Here's what you'd get out of a session.

• You get to know people fast. A few hours of exercises where everyone talks, listens and laughs can do more than months of polite hallway chat.
• You become a better listener. The exercises only work if you pay full attention to the other person. That habit carries straight into meetings and one-on-ones.
• You feel safer speaking up. PowerProv teaches the ensemble mindset. Everyone agrees to back each other's ideas and treat mistakes as something to learn from. Confidence grows quickly in a room like that.
• You learn to trust your instincts. You practise responding in the moment, so being put on the spot at work feels less scary.
• Your whole team learns it at once. Everyone picks up the same habits and the same language, so the change lasts beyond the day.

The results are measured. PowerProv's Personal Power Index™ is an ongoing study that measures participants before and after each workshop.

PowerProv Personal Power Index™, ongoing study

PowerProv isn't a comedy class. Nobody has to be funny, and nobody is pushed onto a stage. The workshops are introvert-friendly. They're also a lot of fun, which is a big part of why the skills stick.

How Do You Ask Your Manager for a PowerProv Workshop?

Ask the person who owns your team's development, and make it easy for them to say yes. That's usually your graduate program lead, your direct manager, or someone in People and Culture. They want new starters to settle in and work well together. You're handing them a way to do that.

Three things help your case:

1. Lead with the team. This is about how quickly your cohort or team starts working well together.
2. Point to proof. PowerProv has 13+ years of experience, a 4.9-star rating, and clients like Google, Westpac, PwC and Canva. Workshops come with a money-back guarantee.
3. Offer to help organise it. It's easier to say yes when someone else does the legwork.

Here's a message you can copy, edit and send.

Hi [name],

I've been thinking about how our team could get to know each other faster and work better together. I came across PowerProv, an Australian company that runs workshops on communication, collaboration and confidence for teams of 12 or more. Their own before-and-after study shows 98% of participants improve their professional relationships.

Would you be open to looking into a session for us? I'm happy to help organise it. There's more detail at powerprov.com.au/graduate-programs.

Thanks, [your name]

If you run a graduate cohort or lead a team and someone has sent you this page, PowerProv's graduate programs are a good place to start. You can also see how it works, or book a discovery call to talk it through.