If your employees are friends with each other, they very well may enjoy having a drink with each other after work for an hour despite seeing each other so often. The reason is that they don’t actually see each other that much while working. It’s like saying students would rather go home to their family because they already see so much of their friends at school. It is perfectly possible for coworkers to be friends with each other, and that DEFINITELY should be a goal for building a company.
I didn't say they can't be friends or have fun together, I was talking about the scenario of "mandatory fun", where such events are forced top-down. It's quite a different scenario when colleagues self-organize an event without any power dynamic at play.
As to coworkers becoming friends, there's nothing wrong with it, but hard disagree on this needing to be a company goal. Friendly? Yes. Actual friends? Very much optional.
There's big cultural and personal differences regarding this matter. Some cultures and people maintain a hard boundary between their work and personal life, they don't necessarily blend into each other.
