Work Spouse

I first know of the the term "work spouse" in an article published in The Straits Times in 2006. I finally found the article in the store room. Then i shall dedicate this article to my ex-work spouse cum food buddy, who is happily persuing his degree cert now :)

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A work spouse is a co-worker (usually of the opposite sex) with whom one shares a special relationship, having bonds similar to those of a marriage; such as, special confidences, loyalties, shared jokes and experiences, and an unusual degree of honesty or openness. The work spouse is a potentially key relationship when one's actual spouse or boy/girlfriend is not able to understand the nuances of the workplace. While it is not unusual for the relationship to contain elements of flirtation, this relationship can be threatened rather than enhanced if it sex is involved.

In one 2006 survey, 32 percent of workers said they had an "office husband" or "office wife." A CNN Money article characterizes the relationship as having the "immediate intimacy [of marriage] without the sex or commitment and cites a report suggesting that such relationships "may not only make you happier with your job but may even improve your chances for promotions and raises."

One source characterizes the relationships as "platonic, very close, opposite-sex couplings, with no romantic strings attached." The phrase is, however, sometimes used for same-sex relationships.

With so many of the quality hours of a day spent at work, having someone there who has an intuitive understanding of the pressures, personalities, interactions, and underlying narratives of the workplace society can add safety and comfort to what can otherwise be an alienating environment. This new social relationship is unique to the social milieu of the late 20th and early 21st century.

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Published: Sunday, April 9, 2006
Having a ‘work spouse’ can be beneficial
By MARJO JOHNE, Toronto Globe and Mail
It’s been almost 20 years since the day they first met, but Krista Hiddema and Stuart Ducoffe say they’re closer than ever.

They spend most of their waking hours together. They travel frequently side by side. And even when they’re apart, they manage to hook up by phone.

“We are so connected to one another,” Hiddema, a human resource specialist who works alongside Ducoffe, an employment lawyer, at e2r Solutions, the HR consulting arm of the Toronto law firm Woolgar VanWiechen Ketcheson Ducoffe LLP. “We know each other so well I can often predict what he is going to say.”

Another love connection at work?

Whoa, says Hiddema and Ducoffe. While they may be spending countless hours together and are so close they often communicate without speaking, there is nothing romantic about their relationship, they say.

They’re simply office mates who also happen to be soul mates.

Or, to use a term that has come into vogue, Hiddema and Ducoffe are office spouses – corporate couples bound by mutual respect, common interests and that particular chemistry of friendship.

“I often joke that Stuart is my daytime husband,” says Hiddema, who got married two-and-a-half years ago to her actual husband. Ducoffe is now engaged.

“But while I would admit that I had girlfriends who said, ‘Why aren’t you dating Stuart’ and Stuart had friends asking him the same thing about me, we were always just such good friends.”

Hiddema and Ducoffe aren’t the only ones enjoying such close friendships at work with colleagues of the opposite sex. Recent studies show many people are saying “I do” to an office spouse.

In a survey last January by Vault Inc., a New York career research firm, 32 percent of employees acknowledged having an office spouse.

Men and women have long enjoyed friendships at work, experts say. But as more women have climbed the corporate ladder, male and female employees increasingly are working as peers.

There is, for example, the dinner party slip of the tongue by national security adviser Condoleeza Rice, who inadvertently referred to her boss, President Bush, as “my husb . . .” Some observers interpreted that verbal stumble as a sign that she saw Bush as her office spouse.

Throw these men and women into an environment where they’re told to work as a tightly knit team and forced to spend long hours together, and it isn’t surprising that many develop strong personal bonds, says Julian Barling, associate dean and professor of organizational behavior and psychology at the Queens School of Business.

“People today are spending more time at work in physical surroundings that make it more likely that romantic or deep-seated, non-romantic relationships will develop,” he says. “You put people in cubicles together and you expect them to work closely together, so what do you expect?”

David Irvine, a human dynamics expert and author, dislikes the term “office spouse” – as does Professor Barling, who says it has negative connotations, though he believes the close friendship at the core of such a relationship is generally beneficial for work place partners and their employers.

Research from the Gallup Organization supports this belief. Between 2002 and 2004, Gallup interviewed 4.5 million employees across the United States and found that about 30 percent had a best friend in the office.

Of this group, close to 60 percent said they felt engaged on the job. By comparison, nearly 65 percent of employees without an office best buddy said they were disengaged.

Scott Richer, marketing manager for Delta Hotels, a subsidiary of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts Inc., says having a best friend at work has made him a better employee.

Two years ago, he formed an affinity with Mary Pattison, Delta’s director of marketing. “It lends for a very cohesive environment for us and brings value to our performance. I feel like I’m playing with a teammate who always knows where I’m going to be on the ice.”

Pattison says that having a close male friend at work has helped hone her business skills. She believes men and women generally have different approaches to business, so she pays close attention to how Richer handles certain work situations.

Being a male-female tag team also comes in handy when dealing with clients and suppliers, she says.

“Sometimes we run into situations where we meet with someone who is just naturally more comfortable having a conversation with someone of the same gender, and we’re fine with that.”

But what office spouses should worry about, says human resource experts, is how their thick-as-thieves relationship might affect work place dynamics.

“Don’t be seen as a clique,” warns Stephanie Milliken, president of Milliken HR Consulting in Vancouver. “Be careful about being so close that you start to exclude others.”

And what about the people at home – the husbands, wives, boyfriends or girlfriends?

Many respondents to the Vault surveys said their significant others had no problems with their close office relationships. That is certainly the case for Hiddema’s husband, who isn’t at all threatened by her relationship with Ducoffe. And Ducoffe says his fiancee is just as comfortable with Hiddema.

Richer and Pattison have introduced their significant others at home to their significant others at the office.

“The four of us have met each other, had dinner together and we all like each other,” Richer says. And their spouses also probably appreciate the fact that they don’t have to listen to work stories at the end of the day, he adds.