Product analyst Dhriti Sinha, 27, quit her job at a Bengaluru-based multinational last month without another offer in hand. She had spent two years feeling uninspired by the work and drained by the pace of deadlines. Her typical routine was to scan job portals at night, weighing options she never acted on.
“I knew I wasn’t happy for a long time,” she says. “But I couldn’t get myself to leave.”
What finally did was this: her closest colleague resigned the week before. “It felt like the only reason I was sticking around just disappeared overnight,” she says. “After that, staying didn’t make sense anymore.”
Sinha’s story may sound specific, but it points to a broader workplace pattern, particularly among Gen Z. Call it a “work bestie effect” or, more colloquially, a trauma bond—employees staying on in demanding, often unsatisfying jobs because of the emotional support they derive from one person.
In practice, that support means being each other’s sounding boards during stressful days, exchanging knowing glances in long meetings, sharing gossip over chai breaks, or sending quick messages to vent mid-call.
When friendship becomes survival
In high-pressure workplaces, friendships are not incidental but functional. They act as informal coping systems in environments that may otherwise feel isolating or overwhelming.
“Workspace friendships are as important as school or college friendships,” says Ruchi Ruuh, a Delhi-based counselling psychologist. “They are shared spaces where people spend extended periods of time together. For many, even one trusted colleague can act as a stabilising force.”
For Rhea Mehta, 26, a marketing executive at a Mumbai-based startup, that anchor was a teammate who grew to be a close friend over the past year. “I didn’t stay because I loved the job. I stayed because there was someone who made it feel manageable,” Mehta says. “With her around, even bad days felt lighter. We take chai breaks and just decompress together.”
When her colleague left, Mehta quit within three weeks. “Nothing about the job changed,” she says. “But my ability to deal with it did.”
The data behind the dynamic
What feels anecdotal is backed by research. According to 2024 research by organisational behaviour platform Gallup, having a “best friend at work” is one of the strongest predictors of employee engagement and performance.
Employees with close workplace friendships are more likely to engage with colleagues and clients, be more productive, and contribute to innovation. Crucially, they are also more likely to stay.
Gallup’s findings suggest that the importance of workplace friendships has increased since the pandemic, when employees leaned heavily on peer relationships to cope with stress and uncertainty.
Other surveys reinforce this. A 2024 report by Express Employment Professionals found that 85% of employers believe employees are more likely to stay if they have friends at work, while 78% of job seekers agree. About 64% of employees said they had stayed in a job longer than intended because of workplace friendships, while nearly a third said they had left jobs where they couldn’t form such bonds. The findings are based on two surveys conducted by The Harris Poll in the United States—one among 1,001 hiring decision-makers and another among 1,039 job seekers.
For Gen Z, these dynamics are even more pronounced. In the case of Ishaan Verma, 25, a junior copywriter in Delhi, work has increasingly replaced other social spaces. “Work became my entire routine, so the people at work became my entire social life,” he says. “The one person who understands what you’re dealing with can make all the difference.”
Ruuh points to a larger shift. “This generation has grown up with greater emotional awareness, but they are also navigating job insecurity and long working hours,” she says. “They are actively seeking emotional anchors and often finding them at work.”
When the buffer disappears
The intensity of these friendships often comes from navigating the same pressures, day after day.
For Nisha Kapoor, 24, who worked at a media agency in Delhi, that support came from a colleague. “We would message each other during meetings just to stay sane. It was like a parallel conversation running all the time,” she says. “I knew the job wasn’t right for me because of my unreasonable boss, but as long as she was there, it didn’t feel urgent to leave.”
That changed the moment her colleague quit. “I wasn’t just missing her, I was suddenly alone dealing with the crisis,” Kapoor says. “Everything felt heavier overnight.”
For many, what follows can look like a sudden decision but rarely is. Most of these exits are often long in the making. “They are the result of accumulated burnout. The friendship was helping them cope—once that is gone, the reality becomes harder to ignore,” Ruuh explains.
The risk of dependence
Despite mounting evidence, many organisations continue to focus on perks to retain employees. “Perks don’t address the core issue,” says Ruuh. “People don’t leave because they lack benefits. They leave because they don’t feel supported, heard or safe.”
While most companies recognise the value of workplace friendships, fewer invest in the conditions that allow them to form—manageable workloads, empathetic leadership and psychological safety. “You can’t engineer friendships,” says Ruuh. “But you can create environments where people feel safe enough to connect.”
At the same time, there is a fine line between support and dependence.“It becomes a concern when someone is staying in a job solely because of one person, or when the thought of that person leaving creates significant anxiety,” points out Ruuh. “A healthy friendship supports growth. A crutch keeps someone in place.”
For Sinha, that distinction became clear only after her colleague left. “I kept asking myself, if she hadn’t been there from the beginning, would I have stayed this long?” she says.
It is a question more young professionals are beginning to confront. Because beneath the language of “work besties” and “trauma bonds” lies a hard truth: if a job is only bearable because of one person, it may not be sustainable. “As comforting as these friendships are, they can sometimes delay hard decisions,” says Ruuh. “When the support goes away, what remains is the reality of the workplace—and that clarity can be uncomfortable, but also necessary.”