Socializing with colleagues is important business, as long as it’s done with your own interest uppermost.

Now, many people feel their own interest is best served by avoiding socializing with co-workers. After all, you already put in long hours at the office, too often leaving little quality time for yourself and loved ones. When your co-workers invite you out for an after-hours drink or ask you to join the department’s softball team, your first thought may be: “I spend all day with these people. Why do I need to socialize with them, too?”

Over years of talking with NiaOnline members via the Internet and at our leadership conferences, we’ve informally observed that many African American professionals skimp on socializing with colleagues. Many feel they already give too much time to their jobs and see socializing with office mates as an intrusion into their personal lives. Others consider work-related social situations where they’re in the ethnic minority too “dry” or culturally awkward to be fun. Others simply don’t want to let their guard down around the people with whom they work.

On the other hand, there are those whose jobs are so demanding of their time and so socially isolating that they may feel they have no alternative to befriending and even romancing co-workers. When these folks let their hair down at office parties or share details of their personal lives with office mates, the consequences sometimes are disastrous. How many times have you heard about someone who had an affair with the boss, only to be forced out of the job after the liaison soured?

It’s our opinion that the best approach to workplace socializing puts your career first, and protects your chances for advancement. When proper boundaries are observed, socializing with colleagues can help in building your professional support network.

With that in mind, here are a few do’s and don’ts of socializing with co-workers:

Do recognize the importance of socializing with colleagues.

Organized group activities, office parties, and after-work trips to the local watering hole all present opportunities to develop connections that can help advance your career, as well as your  effectiveness in your current position. “You don’t have to make spending time with your co-workers a weekly activity. You do need to think ahead and be prepared to socialize with your co-workers when it makes sense for your career,” advised etiquette expert Harriette Cole in her column for NiaOnline titled “Are You Segregating Yourself Out of a Career?”

Don’t underestimate the importance of fostering workplace advocates, mentors, and protégés.

This topic was addressed at our 2005 leadership conference in Chicago. One of the panelists, marketing executive Anne Sempowski-Ward, said: “The higher you go, the more it becomes about how well-connected you are. Who’s on your team?”

Who’s advocating for you? That advocacy is so important…I can’t tell you the number of times my advocates have come to my rescue. Where I’ve just been at the lowest of low, people have swooped in because I had built relationships with them over time, so that they understood where I was coming from and what I was struggling with. “Taking a mentor to lunch, bringing a mentee along with you to a networking event, chatting up potential allies at the company holiday party—these are social interactions that can help you to develop such relationships.

Do be very careful about pursuing romance in the office.

Yes, romances happen in the workplace–in fact, 58 percent of employees say they have been involved in an office romance, the 2006 Vault survey reports. However, when advances are unwelcome in any way, they become sexual harassment – so be very careful about making a move. Also keep in mind that even when relations are completely consensual, an affair may violate office policies or result in career-damaging awkwardness or hard feelings if you break up.

Don’t let it all hang out.

Sheryl once was told, “What you see here, stays here,” before her first office party at a major corporation. She soon came to learn that the party’s events rarely “stayed there;” to the contrary, reports of occasional wild behavior would hit the gossip mill by morning. That consequence was also addressed during our leadership conference. “You’re always on the view, whether you’re out drinking after work with your co-workers or sitting in the boss’s office and having a heart-to-heart,” warned panelist Deborah Telman, an aerospace industry executive. “People are always watching and listening to everything you say and do. That’s one of the lessons I’ve learned by watching others experience some really negative ramifications of getting too loose at work and feeling too comfortable.”

Workplace socializing has a positive and important role in career success. If it results in lasting friendships, too, that’s all the better. Be smart about it, and remember to have fun.

Visit NiaOnline.com for a variety of compelling consumer survey-related information.

Meeting and greeting new business contacts is about so much more than attending rubber chicken, grip-and-grin networking events where you smile till your face hurts, press a lot of flesh, and shove business cards into every hand that you can. Take heed of this sure-fire advice on how to get more mileage from your networking.

Perhaps you, like many others, have gone through this baffling sequence of events: A business professional with high hopes of moving up in corporate America puts on his best suit, polishes his shoes to a new money shine, stuffs an expensive leather holder with business cards printed on the finest paper, and heads to one of the many “networking events” taking place in his area. While at the event, where both entry-level rookies and middle managers may find themselves side by side with top-level senior executives, he flashes his most charming smile and manages to slip his credentials into every conversation. After countless handshakes and a few brief encounters with the most powerful people in the room, he heads home with a bulging pocket full of business cards. But when he later attempts to call or e-mail the individuals he met in hopes of finding out about job opportunities or new business prospects, he receives no responses. Sound familiar?

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Although experts in the diversity and inclusion arenas are not in 100% agreement about the role employee-affinity groups play in determining just how inclusive any given corporate organization really is or isn’t, it’s important to specifically examine their role, especially where the advancement of professionals from diverse backgrounds is concerned. Employee affinity groups are often highlighted as an important feature of a company’s commitment to diversity and positioned as a path toward advancement opportunities.

Once employed, talented professionals join employee-affinity groups and assume they provide access to leadership, a communication channel regarding key openings at the company; and a meeting place for colleagues with similar backgrounds or interests. Based on mixed experiences and findings, the question remains, Are affinity groups the mechanism leadership looks to in developing, identifying, and tapping talent for senior-level positions, or do they represent the equivalent of scheduled cultural exchanges and social gatherings with little impact on an individual’s success, recognition, or advancement?

The Spectrum

Employee-affinity groups certainly aren’t all the same. As with most programs borne out of corporate diversity and inclusion initiatives, their sophistication depends greatly on where a company sits on the diversity spectrum. Often, firms with a shorter history or less formal commitment to diversity may have fewer systems in place to make affinity groups a viable tool for talent retention and advancement. Companies with more history/experience will often host affinity groups that are more structured, heavily focused on business goals and representative of an active pool of talent to consider as the need to the best talent grows stronger each day.

Recently, The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), a leading national Hispanic civil- rights organization, in partnership with Sodexo Inc. led an initiative to understand affinity groups’ membership, purpose, and outcomes across corporate America and to assess the impact these groups are having on Latino professionals. “Overall, we found that every group across the nearly 50 companies that responded was slightly different from one another,” says Simon Lopez, NCLR workforce development director. “It was clear that good intentions are what drive the creation and support of these groups, but that the ones with the most potential positive impact for the advancement of Latino professionals are those that focus on business bottom-line goals and are constructed to serve as talent pools for all levels.”

Many Faces

Respondents to NCLR’s research submitted more than 10 different options in response to the question, “What activities do your employee-affinity groups focus on?” Answers ranged from raising cultural awareness to promoting community service to conducting product testing to talent development. Given this wide scope, professionals seeking that next big break into leadership must carefully assess how and where they spend their limited time. Although helping to raise cultural awareness is certainly a priority, will hosting a booth in the atrium during Heritage Month help you meet your professional objectives? Further, in the true spirit of diversity and inclusion from a business standpoint, what is truly gained from recognition for your cultural background as opposed to recognition in the boardroom? The ideal is, naturally, a company that strikes a healthy balance between both.

Rolddy Leyva, senior director of diversity at Sodexo, notes, “Each day is an opportunity for us to leverage our employee-affinity groups for talent retention and development as well as for creating a more inclusive and open environment. It’s not an easy mission to manage, but it is possible to support meaningful programs related to specific cultures while keeping a hard focus on our need to keep and grow the best talent from all backgrounds.”

Networking to Advance

The NCLR initiative also highlighted how important employees consider affinity groups for networking purposes, with 100% of respondents noting that they are a networking vehicle. For ambitious, experienced, and highly-coveted professionals of diverse backgrounds, the real issue that needs to be addressed is, “Does networking as part of my company’s affinity group provide access to opportunity and leadership, or access to my peers and subordinates?” If getting ahead is the aim, an employee needs to critically evaluate how the existing affinity group can help or hinder that objective. By asking a few key questions during the interview process or once employed, it’s possible to determine whether it makes sense to invest time and energy in an employee affinity group if professional advancement is the main goal. These include:

• What is the affinity group’s mission statement? You will have a different experience participating in a group whose stated mission is to honor shared culture and promote its visibility within the company than a group whose stated mission is to identify, retain, and develop top talent for advancement.
• What systems or programs are in place to identify, retain, and develop talent through the affinity group? Digging deeper will get you past public relations positioning and into the real role of the group.
• Are there current leaders in management or executive ranks that were identified through the group and developed for their current roles? Ask to meet with them. If there aren’t any, chances are top talent isn’t developed from inside affinity groups.
• How is the group funded and structured? You want to know the budget, where it’s coming from, and who leads the group in front of leadership. This will help you understand who truly “owns” the group and how heavily the company is investing in its success.

The Point

Diversity and inclusion efforts sponsored by leading companies are continually evolving, and it’s critical that business leaders are held accountable to truly moving their cause forward. Employee-affinity groups represent opportunities that on the whole could be activated more broadly to benefit both employees and employers. In years past, it was acceptable to maintain an employee affinity group for the sole purpose of giving individual employees of like backgrounds an opportunity to interact. More recently, the aim has been to promote visibility of the cultures represented more broadly within the organization. Today, the goal should be centered on cultivating employee-affinity groups for enhanced professional opportunities. It will serve both the business bottom line and the diverse professionals at the forefront of today’s race for talent.

Jessica Priego Lopez is president of J Priego Communications. She can be contacted at Jessica@jpriego.com