How To Deal With Cliques At Work

CiscoASA2202

Anyone else part of one or two groups of people at work and it makes things awkward for some time? Is there ever a way out?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/07/25/how-to-deal-with-cliques-at-work/#2b8d4fe77920

According to a new CareerBuilder survey, 43% of workers say their office is populated by cliques—which are tightly knit groups of co-workers who socialize in and outside the office, and often exclude others.

“At work, joining a clique can give you a feeling of security, a sense of identity,” says Katherine Crowley, co-author of Mean Girls At Work andWorking With You Is Killing Me. ”We find that office cliques tend to form most in corporate environments with weak management. They are like office gangs that emerge to fill in the void of leadership.”

There may be some advantages to joining a clique at work—but it can also be extremely detrimental to your career. About 13% of workers said the presence of office cliques has had a negative impact on their career advancement. “It's easy to get labeled as part of 'that group' and then it becomes part of your identity," Hoover says. "This can be important when upper management may not be able to spend enough time with staffers and get to know them well, and sometimes who you associate with is who you become to a boss or manager.”

Queue

We have a group that goes to lunch everyday. There is also a group that exercises at either the company gym or outdoors. You obviously can't do both, but my plan is to do gym most days. Then once in a while I'll go to lunch with lunch group. As with most social outings in life, if you are invited to outside of work events, you should try and make it once in a while. Team building is important with your colleagues. Not doing such could lead to not being invited to later events.

Now as far as a way out, just find something else to do during the allotted time. Just as expected this will damage the relationships, then you decide if they're worth the work. If not they will fizzle out.

All that being said, the article paints "cliques/gangs" as negative. Obviously you wouldn't get involved with a group at work that gossiped heavily about others, didn't follow policy, slacked off, etc. If you stay away from the latter, your management should see you as a person that has the social capabilities to be apart of a team. Not one that is hard to communicate with and an outsider.

Way to stand out: If you find yourself apart of a group that excludes others you could score some points, do this by being the one to initiate newcomers.