The Nexus between Informal Relationships at Work and Employee Retention: A Review

Abstract

The present paper reviews and summarizes the key findings of research on the effect of informal relationships at work on employee retention featuring the main three aspects of informal relationships at work: friendship; romance and negative relationships. Building on Maslow's (1954) hierarchy of needs theory, a narrative literature review of all the relevant research papers known to the authors was conducted. It is found that friendship at the workplace is positively correlated with employee retention whereas negative relationships at the workplace inversely effect on employee retention. However, the underline relationships between romance at the workplace and employee retention is not clear and consistent in extant literature, so that, it remains yet to be investigated further in future research studies.

The findings of the current review support the general notion that workplace is not a mere place to come and work, but it is a complex societal system through which people try to fulfill their social needs, included relationships at the workplace.