The loneliness epidemic has reached the global workforce, and the numbers are no joke: In a recent survey from Gallup, one in five workers reported feeling lonely during “a lot” of the previous workday. But how we work can make all the difference in our sense of connection while we work. Gallup’s survey found that key workplace variables – such as employee disengagement and a lack of face-to-face time with colleagues – can make workers especially vulnerable to feelings of isolation.
The good news is that by fostering togetherness and engagement on their teams, organizations can curb worker loneliness and reap the benefits of a happier, healthier, and more collaborative workforce. Here’s how.
A model of Intentional Team Gatherings
Face-to-face time is vital for building meaningful workplace relationships, but the quality of those interactions – as opposed to sheer quantity – matters. In other words, working in a shared office five days per week isn’t a guaranteed fix. What’s more, data shows that the overwhelming majority of today’s knowledge workers don’t occupy the same office as their teammates in the first place. In short: It’s up to organizations to be proactive about designing opportunities for distributed team members to convene and build relationships in a purposeful way.
At Atlassian, there’s a strategy for this: Intentional Team Gatherings, or ITG events. Held over the course of three to five days, typically at one of the company’s 11 global offices, these events are calibrated to encourage close colleagues to forge relationships through in-person social time, team-building activities, and focused collaborative work on high-priority projects. Internal surveys show that after ITG events, participants feel more connected with their teams which, in turn, boosts overall engagement levels. The effect tends to last about four months after the event.
Leaders at other organizations have arrived at similar conclusions about the necessity of intentional in-person gatherings. Christopher Moore, the Chief Marketing Officer for the North Carolina-based mergers and acquisitions advisory firm Quiet Light says that his company’s fully remote teams rely on several annual in-person events to forge a sense of unity and common purpose between colleagues. “I find that in-person gatherings are best when there is a good mix of social components and programming that is focused on past results and future opportunities,” he says. “These events should leave people with a strong sense of belonging and purpose, aligned on mission and goals, understanding their place within the larger picture, and energized to take on any upcoming challenges.”
Healthy work-life balance
It comes as no surprise that wellbeing at work is a major factor in worker engagement. At the heart of worker wellbeing is – you guessed it – work-life balance. The formula is simple enough: When people feel like they have enough time and energy to attend to their workday duties while also living a full life outside of work, they’re less likely to feel bogged down by stress or succumb to burnout. They’re also less likely to feel lonely at work.
“It’s simple: Happy people get results, they come to work with pride and joy, and they respect the company as long as the company respects them,” says Dennis Lenard, the London-based CEO at the Creative Navy UX agency. Lenard thinks of work-life balance as “a line in the sand.” When employers don’t take it into account, they’re showing their employees “that their limits are meaningless or unreasonable even though, in actuality, they’re not,” he says.
How can organizations avoid crossing that line? “I think the first step is to move away from ‘balance’ and towards ‘harmony,’” says Jennifer M. Recla, a Leadership Coach and Trainer at Recla Coaching and Consulting in Aurora, Colorado. As she sees it, that means helping staff establish healthy boundaries, learn to prioritize, and be proactive about passing off certain tasks or taking a break when they need to.
Individual workers can be proactive about protecting their work-life balance too. “Workers can contribute to better balance by ensuring, when job searching, that the company’s culture aligns with their work-life balance goals,” says Dr. Sonia Daniels, Founder and President of S. Daniels Consulting, a remote-first strategy firm with team members in Louisiana and Florida. “While you can change jobs, changing a company’s culture is much harder.”
Engagement via connection
It’s important to remember that workplace engagement and connection are closely linked; each feeds the other. The reasons why come down to basic human nature.
“As humans, we crave belonging,” Recla says. “When we feel connected to our leaders and team, we want to support them. We want to work harder for them. And we collectively want to achieve results. Connection leads to a sense of belonging, which is directly tied to a more engaged, productive workforce.”
In addition to offering in-person gathering opportunities, leaders can take simple steps to build connectivity into their everyday culture. Recla suggests that leaders incorporate Monday morning check-ins via Teams or Slack. These can be as simple as asking a series of questions: “‘How was your weekend?’ ‘What’s your week look like?’ ‘Anyone need support?’ ‘A pep talk?’ ‘Feedback?’ ‘A virtual hug?’” Recla says.
It’s also critical that managers nurture a sense of psychological safety within and between teams by showing that everyone’s voice matters. “Leaders should focus on building trust and rapport through a bottoms-up management approach,” Daniels suggests. “This means encouraging team members to speak up, welcoming their ideas, and showing that those ideas are valued and used.”
Bottom line: Worker loneliness is, in large part, a workplace culture problem. The silver lining is that culture-based problems have culture-based solutions. The power is in companies’ hands to create a culture that supports worker wellness, engagement, and connectedness – and help kick loneliness to the curb.