A recent Gallup “State of the Global Workplace” report highlights that about 20% of employees worldwide experience loneliness daily. That number rises to 25% among fully remote workers.

Experts say this is troubling because it impacts an individual’s well-being. Lonely employees also tend to be less engaged and productive.

Fortunately, Constance Noonan Hadley from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business and Sarah Wright from the University of Canterbury Business School have studied loneliness in modern workplaces for decades and offer practical steps for organizations to counteract it. Their findings were published in the November-December issue of Harvard Business Review.

Notably, Hadley and Wright found that in-person meetings don’t fix a company’s loneliness problem. This is good news for remote-first organizations like ours.

The authors suggest that the key to fighting workplace loneliness is to foster connections and a sense of belonging in other ways. Some of the top things on their list include:

1. Consider your company or team’s social landscape. Hadley and Wright suggest measuring loneliness through their survey, the Work Loneliness Scale. However, this might not always be feasible for employers, especially in small businesses like ours, where protecting employee privacy can be challenging. Fortunately, even if collecting data isn’t possible, you can still assess opportunities for connection and develop a plan to improve them.
2. Create downtime for fostering connections. Building relationships takes time, so managers should consider when and how this will happen. The authors point out that understaffed organizations often struggle to help employees build in time to foster relationships.
3. Consider your culture. Many believe that a positive workplace culture directly correlates with employee satisfaction, engagement and loyalty. But culture also acts as an antidote to loneliness. The authors note that small gestures—such as acknowledging birthdays and other important life milestones—can make a big difference.
4. Identify activities that will work for your group, then schedule them. They don’t have to be complicated, and many can happen virtually. For instance, dedicate time at the beginning or end of Zoom or Teams meetings for team members to check in and chat about life outside of work. Consider in-person lunches, connecting at a coffee shop or organizing off-sites as opportunities for more in-depth connections.

I recommend checking out the article for additional tips. I found it inspiring and was glad to see that we’re already doing many of these things. It makes me even more enthusiastic about our December off-site. Hadley and Wright’s work is a wonderful reminder of the importance of inclusivity and the positive impact we can all have on one another by making a little extra effort to connect.