New research reveals that the lack of human connection is not just a remote work issue. It’s a culture problem—and it’s probably hurting your company
A new Gallup poll released last week found that only two in 10 U.S. employees say they have a ‘best friend’ at work ― troubling news, coming as workplace experts are starting to worry about an increased disconnection between employees and their job.
“We’re seeing in the data that younger people in general are feeling more disconnected from their workplaces,” said Gallup’s workplace and well-being researcher Jim Harter. “You can attribute some of that, potentially, to remote work. If they’re less connected to their workplace, they have fewer opportunities to connect with other colleagues and to develop those kinds of friendships that they might have had in the past.”
Sure, remote work is playing a part ― but so has years of orthodox business management that discouraged employees from bringing their personal lives to work, noted Jon Clifton. “Despite claiming “people are our greatest asset,” many executives I’ve met expect employees to leave their personal lives at the door when they come to work,” he writes in the Harvard Business Review. “Yet Gallup’s data shows that having a best friend at work is strongly linked to business outcomes, including improvements in profitability, safety, inventory control and employee retention.”
It’s an area that one psychologist suggests could be part of the tepid response to the RTO push, and suggested that workplaces are falling into old habits when it comes to workplace socialization. If the office is meant to be dynamic and fun, employers have to let it be dynamic and fun.
“One of the things that I’m noticing is that people are coming into the office and saying ― why am I here? All I’m doing is sitting on Zoom meetings with my, you know, noise-cancelling headphones on because it’s so noisy,” said psychologist Lynda Gratton, on a recent Financial Times podcast.
“If I go into the office, it’s because I’ve got a friend at work. I want to speak to a friend,” she continued. “So, I think if you’re a manager who’s asking yourself, how am I gonna get people back into the office? You get them into the office because there’s a friend there.”
Content written by Kieran Delamont for Worklife, a partnership between Ahria Consulting and London Inc. To view this content in newsletter form, click here.