Companies Assume Close Friendships at Work Are the Ultimate Weapon for Keeping Employees Loyal, but Startling New Research Shows the Exact Opposite Might Brutally Be True

If you’ve got a close friend at your desk, new data suggests you’re both the happiest person in the building and the most likely to be quietly updating your resume. A 2026 survey of U.S. employees by KPMG and CivicScience found that workers with close personal friendships at work report the highest happiness and engagement of any group in the office — and 42% of them are actively looking for a new job within the next 12 months, nearly three times the rate of employees who don’t socialize with colleagues at all. For a business world that has spent a decade selling workplace friendship as a loyalty strategy, that’s an inconvenient number.

The Happiness Premium Is Real

Start with the good news, because there is a lot of it. In the Friends at Work 3.0 report, fielded April 17–22, 2026 with sample sizes ranging from 558 to 1,354 respondents, employees who described their closest work relationships as personal friendships — not just work friends, not just friendly acquaintances — were dramatically more invested in their jobs. Fifty-five percent said they were very happy in their current role, compared with just 28% of employees who don’t socialize with coworkers at all. Forty-nine percent said they always feel engaged at work. And 87% said they’re actively focused on developing new skills, versus roughly half of employees with no close workplace ties.

These same employees also trust their organizations more: 47% say they trust their company “a lot,” versus just 19% of non-socializers, and 78% believe their manager genuinely cares about them, versus 32% among people who keep to themselves. On paper, this is exactly the case employers have made for years — build camaraderie, and you build loyalty.

The Paradox: Your Happiest People Are Also Your Flight Risks

Here’s where the story turns. That same group — the happiest, most engaged, most trusting employees — is also the most likely to be job hunting. According to KPMG’s data, only 34% of employees with close personal friendships at work say they are “not at all likely” to search for a new job in the next year. Compare that with 52% of employees who don’t socialize at work, who overwhelmingly say they’re staying put. In other words, isolation, not connection, is what correlates with feeling stuck where you are.

Sandy Torchia, KPMG U.S. Vice Chair of Talent and Culture, put it plainly in the report’s release: “Employees fostering close friendships at work often sit at the center of that pressure, representing a high-demand, high-impact segment.” These aren’t disengaged workers eyeing the exit. They’re your most capable people, and they know it — which means other employers know it too.

Why Friendship Fuels Ambition, Not Just Comfort

The KPMG data offers a clue as to why. Fifty-five percent of employees with close work friendships hold management responsibilities, and 32% volunteer weekly outside of work, compared with just 8% across other groups — four times the rate. A picture emerges: people who build close relationships at work also tend to be the ones investing broadly in themselves, their networks, and their communities. Friendship doesn’t just make a job feel warmer. It travels alongside ambition and confidence, which makes someone more marketable, not less.

That reframes the paradox. Close work friends aren’t quietly plotting an exit because the job failed them emotionally. They’re often your most capable, most networked people doing what capable, networked people do: keeping their options open.

It Isn’t Just KPMG Saying It

This connection between workplace friendship and engagement isn’t a one-report fluke. Gallup’s long-running workplace research has tracked a similar pattern for years, from a different angle. Only about 2 in 10 U.S. employees say they have a best friend at work — but among those who do, the share who strongly agree climbed from 39% in 2019 to 44% in 2022, tracking alongside stronger reported connections to safety, innovation, and how much people said they enjoyed their work. Gallup also found the relationship between having a best friend at work and an employee’s intent to leave grew more pronounced through the pandemic years — a strikingly similar thread to what KPMG is now measuring directly: friendship correlates with feeling invested in your job, and, at the same time, with weighing whether to leave it.

Two research organizations, using different methodologies years apart, arrived at the same uncomfortable overlap. That’s not proof workplace friendship backfires. It’s proof that it does something more complicated than simply gluing people to their chairs.

What This Means for You

If you’re the one running a team, the takeaway isn’t to discourage friendship at the office — the same data shows disconnected employees report far less trust, less engagement, and less loyalty overall. The lesson is narrower: camaraderie alone was never a retention plan. Your closest-knit people also tend to be your most skill-hungry and most marketable, so pair the culture-building with real investment — visible growth paths, honest pay conversations, and challenges that match their ambition — or someone else will happily offer it to them.

And if you’re the one with a close friend two desks over, there’s nothing wrong with that friendship carrying you through a hard Tuesday. Just notice what the data is really telling you: connection makes work better, but it isn’t a substitute for growth. The two aren’t in competition. Keep the friendship, and keep asking for what comes next.