Help Your Employees Get a Life

Jason Fried, co-founder of Chicago Web applications company 37signals, thinks it's gotten harder to make and maintain his own strong personal friendships. He also feels that with so many ways to instantly communicate, our communication is becoming less valuable. "People don't even use punctuation anymore. I think it devalues [communication]," says Fried, 32. "You're basically saying, 'I don't respect this person enough to take the time to communicate with them properly.'"

Entrepreneurs talk about the sense of family in their workplaces, but how far should they go to create a familial atmosphere? Aldrich believes the trend toward fewer confidants could make positive workplace relationships more important, but employers shouldn't expect employees to turn to them as confidants. "If employees don't have any friends, [it's] not the employer's job [to fix that]," he says. "Most employers aren't trained as psychotherapists."

Fried doesn't think employers should promote friendships that could come off as contrived and interrupt employees' productivity. The seven employees at 37signals work remotely and maintain contact throughout the day using the company's own real-time messaging product called Campfire. They talk about projects, share jokes and occasionally mention something about their lives. But that's as far as it goes. "Companies don't want to know what their employees are really like," Fried says. "Companies shouldn't encourage [true openness] unless they're ready for the results. And I don't think most companies are ready."