Lonely but not alone

Academic and medical research have found that loneliness has serious consequences for individuals and workplaces alike. Lonely employees are less motivated to perform at work and perform less well than their happier counterparts, according to 2018 research in the Academy of Management Journal. Such loneliness affects entire workplaces, which reportedly see higher turnover rates than less lonely offices, according to 2022 research in the Journal of Organizational Effectiveness.

Beyond simply impacting work life, the effect of loneliness on human health is well-documented in the medical literature, spanning increased likelihoods of heart disease, dementia, diabetes, immune system dysfunction, and early death, to say nothing of increased reports of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.

The most obvious solution, to bring everyone back to the office, doesn’t appeal to many remote and hybrid workers. When given the opportunity, nearly 9 out of 10 employees choose to work remotely, according to research from McKinsey. As a result, frustrated executives aren’t sure how to help, says Liuba Belkin, associate professor and director of the management program at Lehigh University’s College of Business. Belkin studies how workers’ emotions affect their performance in the workplace.

Having a rich social life outside of work is not enough to protect remote workers against loneliness, says Belkin. “Even people with families and significant others and friends feel a certain longing for better workplace interactions that foster high-quality connections,” she says.

Jane Dutton, professor emerita of business administration and psychology at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, coined the term “high-quality connections” in her 2003 book “Energize Your Workplace: How to Create and Sustain High-Quality Connections at Work” to describe interactions marked by mutual positive regard, trust, and active engagement. People often know when they’re experiencing a high-quality connection because they feel “open, competent, and alive,” Dutton writes.

The boost people get from high-quality connections impacts everyone who participates in them, including healthier immune systems, better breathing and heart rates, reduced amounts of cortisol (the stress hormone) and greater amounts of oxytocin (the trust hormone), and much more, she says.

“If you think of an invisible thread connecting people, the capacity of that thread becomes more flexible and can carry more good stuff between people” when they make high-quality connections, she says. “It’s just sort of shocking, so simple but really powerful.”

Such high-quality connections lead to many positive organizational outcomes, including better performance, increased trust, stronger relationships between supervisors and employees, and less employee turnover, says Belkin.

But it’s difficult to encourage these types of relationships digitally. Research based on an aggregate dataset of Microsoft’s U.S. employees’ behavior during meetings in 2020 found that roughly 30% of participants multitasked during remote meetings. Yet even when subtle, multitasking makes people seem noticeably less present and alert, according to Belkin. “Your colleagues can feel it when you’re not paying attention to them,” she says. This poses a barrier to high-quality connections, which require conversationalists to convey presence, listen actively, and show genuine interest, according to Dutton’s work.