The widespread adoption of telecommuting in recent months, and the fact that it is likely to become a permanent feature, suggests that the way in which people build up and nurture their professional network will undergo profound upheaval – particularly for young recruits and new employees. In this unprecedented context, how do you nurture relationships that are conducive to your career path?

“An employee’s network of personal contacts plays a key role, contributing in many different ways to his or her career path. This network is made up of colleagues, employees of other companies (former colleagues, people working for customers), or simply friends and family. All of them can deliver something: advice on career choices, information on opportunities or, in the case of influential relationships, the assignment of rewarding missions or support for promotion. They are also sources of emotional support, enabling us to cope with difficult situations, make work more enjoyable, even help us to ‘forget’ work for a while, and ultimately reduce professional stress”, explains Barthelemy Chollet, a professor in the Management Technologie Stratégie department at Grenoble Ecole de Management, and a specialist in interpersonal networks.

However, he points out: “We often overestimate our ability to create this network ourselves. After all, it’s essentially the context in which we evolve that determines most of our relationships. The formation of our relationships is influenced by two main principles:

• Transitivity (my friends’ friends become my friends): we meet many people by being introduced by others;
• Homophily (like attracts like): it’s easier to form bonds with people with whom you have something in common.”

The effects of remote working on interpersonal relations

These two fundamental principles, which enable relationships to be renewed, are hampered in remote working situations. Why is this?

Transitivity: we often meet someone we know by chance, in the corridor, at a café, etc., and are introduced to a third party we didn’t know before. Remote working makes these situations much rarer and/or more artificial.

Homophily: to realize that you share something with someone you don’t know, and to build a relationship, you need a minimum of informal discussion, “small talks” that don’t concern the task in hand but more personal subjects. And we know that this type of discussion is much less common at a distance.

These circumstances are particularly disadvantageous for young people starting out in business, or for new recruits.

Managers have a key role to play

• Ideally, new recruits should work less remotely than others.
• If face-to-face meetings are not possible on a regular basis, we need to try and give these newcomers a variety of assignments. Through projects and work meetings, these employees will renew their relationships, despite the distance, at the same time as they renew their missions.
• If face-to-face meetings are not possible on a regular basis, we need to make sure that at least part of the work is done through synchronous meetings. Being in the office enables us to have synchronous contacts (two people interacting at the same time). In remote working situations, we often observe a drift towards asynchronous meetings (email exchanges, chat Teams etc.), which, while allowing greater flexibility, considerably reduces the informal part of exchanges and the possibility of establishing relationships. It’s the “unity of time” (being together at the same time) that enables relationships to be established, rather than the “unity of place” (being together in the same place).”

What are the recommendations for employees?

 “For employees, the challenge is to maintain the network that comes naturally to us through work situations and life experiences. Maintaining your network by hearing from people, making suggestions, etc. enables you to maintain and consolidate relationships. It keeps options open and preserves relationships that we may not necessarily see as useful today, but which will benefit us one day,” argues Barthelemy Chollet.

In fact, this is what studies on the subject show: spending time wondering with whom to establish new links generates fewer career benefits than spending time wondering with whom the existing link is likely to weaken, with whom we wish to maintain a relationship. Maintain rather than create. It’s much easier to maintain a network from a distance than to build a brand-new one.

The digitalization of social relations: an opportunity to diversify your network

“The digitalization of social relations and the emergence of social networks are opening up new possibilities. Through the creation of multiple communities of experts, more or less structured, belonging to various companies, articulated around social networks such as Linkedin, for example, it is now possible to renew one’s relationships and connect with people from a wide variety of backgrounds. These are mainly what we call “weak links”, i.e. people we don’t know very well, but who generally evolve in spheres very different from our own, and therefore give us access to unique and original information. But of course, this type of link is not enough,” concludes Barthelemy Chollet.