We’re Still Lonely at Work

It’s time for organizations to take a new approach. by Constance Noonan Hadley and Sarah L. Wright From Harvard Business Review Magazine (November–December 2024)

In recent years, the huge impact that work loneliness has on healthcare costs, absenteeism, and turnover has received widespread attention. The U.S. Surgeon General’s Office and the World Health Organization have exhorted employers to do more to address social disconnection at work, but despite growing awareness and effort, the problem persists. In fact, the 2024 State of the Global Workplace report by Gallup finds that one in five employees worldwide currently feels lonely at work.

Many aspects of modern life contribute to loneliness, including cultural, economic, demographic, and technological factors that are beyond the scope of employers to directly influence. However, there are aspects of organizational life that they can change to reduce work loneliness and increase human connection.

Building on our collective decades of experience studying and consulting on loneliness with companies around the world, we conducted a research program to find out why organizations are struggling to combat work loneliness and to identify the leadership behaviors, social activities, and environments that can make a difference. We studied 1,000 knowledge workers employed by companies in the United States in more than 20 industries, including financial services, healthcare, technology, and manufacturing. Using a measurement tool we developed called the Work Loneliness Scale, we screened people for loneliness before inviting them to participate to ensure that we had at least 200 people in each of three categories: highly lonely (249 participants); moderately lonely (383); and minimally lonely (368). Participants came from all levels of the hierarchy, from young professionals to senior managers, and had a variety of work arrangements: fully in-person (42%), hybrid (37%), and fully remote (21%). We presented the participants with a series of scenarios to test various social opportunities that employers could offer to see which ones resonated the most with workers.

Drawing from that research, we identify in this article what companies get wrong about loneliness and present practical techniques for reducing it in the workplace.

Getting Loneliness Wrong

Before delving into what companies should do to address this problem, it is critical to examine the myths about employee loneliness that have induced organizations to adopt policies and practices that are unlikely to be effective—and might even backfire.

Myth 1: Loneliness can be solved with in-person work.

Too often, we hear executives claim that remote work is the main reason people feel lonely and disconnected from colleagues. That just isn’t true, and it certainly should not be used as an excuse to bring people back to the office. We acknowledge that face-to-face interactions can generate the kinds of social spontaneity and shared experiences that bond people together. And working completely remotely and never meeting colleagues in person can be isolating. However, to villainize remote work as the culprit for loneliness is to miss the nuances of the problem.

For example, although we found that fully remote employees are lonelier than those who work fully on-site or in a hybrid capacity, we discovered that other factors—such as the number of company-sponsored social opportunities offered and the person’s level of extroversion—are more significant drivers of loneliness than work location. We also found that whether someone works five days in the office or just two days in the office makes no difference when it comes to level of loneliness. In fact, our highly lonely participants reported conducting nearly half (47%) of their prior month’s work interactions in person, which shows that even a substantial amount of face-to-face work does not automatically translate into less loneliness.

Myth 2: Teams will solve loneliness.

Another erroneous assertion is that people should be placed on teams to reduce loneliness. A study conducted by one of us (Constance) with INSEAD’s Mark Mortensen discovered that working on a team did not inoculate people against feeling lonely. In fact, being on a team can make them feel even lonelier when the closeness they expect their team to provide does not come to pass. When teams carefully cultivate mutual respect and interdependence among members, strong social ties can result. However, simply assigning employees to teams does not necessarily make them less lonely.

Myth 3: Lonely employees are needier socially than others at work.

In our conversations with executives, we found that they often blame loneliness on the “neediness” of certain (usually younger) employees and their unrealistic desire to forge many close relationships at work. Such views overlook the diversity of social needs present in any generation or group of people. Social science research has revealed that people naturally vary in the degree to which they seek out close relationships—what scholars call their “need to belong.”

In our study, we measured each participant’s need to belong at work and found that this variable had no correlation with level of loneliness. In other words, loneliness can affect anyone, regardless of how much they desire social connection in a work setting. We also found that introverts are more likely to be lonely at work than extroverts, even though they tend to have less need for connection.

Myth 4: Loneliness is a personal problem, not an organizational problem.

Another way that employers sidestep their culpability for work loneliness is to attribute it to inherent weaknesses or deficits of the person while ignoring the influence of the work environment. In our study, many participants told stories of being lonely in one job but not lonely in another, illustrating just how strongly context can influence feelings of social connection. A healthcare consultant told us that in his previous job he enjoyed regular happy hours with colleagues after work, where he found common ground and friendship. At his current job, he feels lonely: Colleagues meet strictly to do their work and show no interest in socializing or getting to know one another personally. The director of mental health programs at a nonprofit also told us about feeling lonely at work. She worked alongside a leadership team that didn’t respect her or her role and made her feel overlooked and undervalued. This was in contrast to her experience at a previous organization, where she had been entrusted with building a program from the ground up. From the beginning, she felt invested in and integrated into the company.

It is time to stop blaming work loneliness on remote arrangements, particular jobs, and certain personal characteristics. As our prior research has shown, anyone—from the young entry-level worker to the seasoned CEO—can feel lonely on the job.

Putting Loneliness on the Agenda

When we asked respondents whether they felt that their manager was doing enough to support their relationships with others at work, only 18% of the highly lonely employees said yes, compared with 77% of the people who weren’t lonely at work. “I feel that this is not a big priority in the office,” a project manager in construction said. “My manager isn’t really doing anything to support social relationships at work.”

Frontline and middle managers play a significant role in either facilitating or undermining social connection. In some cases, the requests employees had of their bosses were relatively straightforward. For example, a healthcare benefits administrator who was in the highly lonely group said, “They could encourage more group discussions…making sure that we all know who everyone is in case we ever need to lean on each other.” We feel, however, that to truly root out loneliness and build connection, a more comprehensive approach is needed that encompasses the following managerial steps.

1. Measure loneliness.

It is difficult to address loneliness among your employees if you don’t know how prevalent the problem is. We have yet to meet a manager who systematically assesses work loneliness using a research-verified instrument. To collect such data, organizations can use our Work Loneliness Scale (see “A Tool for Measuring Work Loneliness;” to find out your own work loneliness score, click here). Given the social stigma and shame that surround loneliness, it is important to administer such surveys in a way that protects employee privacy—for example, by conducting the survey anonymously, which also increases the chances of gathering accurate data.

See more HBR charts in Data & Visuals

Once you have a good sense of the social landscape of the company, targeted efforts to improve connection can begin.

2. Design slack into the workflow.

Building strong relationships takes time and effort. If employees are constantly working at their maximum capacity, they won’t be able to invest time in pivotal interactions that generate trust, mutual knowledge, and affinity. That clearly was the case at the organization where a retail buyer worked. She told us, “Our environment and the amount of work we have doesn’t allow us to get up and engage with each other. We’re constantly stressed.”

Another study participant bemoaned the short staffing that makes it difficult to find the time to connect with others: “Positions are vacant and then vacant forever. So it’s really hard to focus on things like building internal social connections because we’re just trying to get the work done and cover all these other positions.”

Hiring enough people and reorganizing workflows to allow time for the necessary social interactions is important for people at all levels in the organization. A financial products manager told us about his boss: “My personal manager is running in so many different directions at once. It’s very difficult for him to find time to socially interact with anybody, much less encourage that amongst his team.”

3. Create a culture of connection.

The culture of an organization conveys what is acceptable and valuable. Unfortunately, a great many lonely participants in our study described their work environment as “toxic,” “hostile,” and “biased.” We heard about patterns of lying, malicious gossip, cliques, and prejudiced behaviors. It is impossible to develop a closely connected workforce with such negative undercurrents. Managers must rigorously assess their organizational culture and root out patterns that undermine social bonds among employees.

As shown in our Work Loneliness Scale questions, one way to see if the culture is supportive of relationships is to ask people whether they feel that their boss and colleagues “have their back” and would strive to be helpful in times of need. From our nonlonely participants, we heard many positive stories of workplace loyalty, support, and kindness among coworkers. For example, a portfolio manager who works remotely said that when his parents were killed in a car accident, “a lot of my coworkers flew in for the funeral, so I felt very socially connected.” A medical claims analyst told us, “When I first started there, they found out my refrigerator had just died on me. Next thing I knew, my boss appeared at my house and dropped off a little-used but working refrigerator.”

Dan Saelinger using AI

A client service representative at a mortgage company related that when a mass shooting occurred in her neighborhood while she was working from home, the CEO of her company and other senior executives called her personally that day to make sure she was safe and doing OK. For nearly two months after the shooting, the CEO had someone check in on her almost daily. “It was the love and support and the compassion that my whole organization had for me that let me know that I was a part of this organization and why I probably will never ever consider leaving,” she said.

Other stories were less dramatic but nonetheless demonstrated a mutually supportive culture. For example, an emergency services dispatcher told us about receiving unsolicited help from colleagues when he applied for a supervisor position. Others told us how much it meant to them that their coworkers remembered their birthdays. Overall, we found that participants who reported low levels of loneliness on our scale were more likely to describe their organizations as “inclusive,” “welcoming,” and “caring.” Those attributes make up what the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office calls a “culture of connection.”

4. Build socializing into the rhythm of work.

To understand which specific programs and practices would be most effective at establishing connections, we gave each participant a list of eight common activities that organizations might offer their employees. Some of the activities were fairly simple to execute: offering happy hours, devoting meeting time to chitchat, and gathering for communal lunches. The others required more investment from the organization: networking programs, peer relationship-building, well-being initiatives, employee social groups, and off-sites.

Next, we asked everyone to report how often they had access to each type of activity in their jobs. The data came back loud and clear: The people who reported not feeling lonely said that their employers offered a frequent and robust set of social opportunities. In aggregate, the minimally lonely group reported having 31% more organization-sponsored social opportunities than the highly lonely group.

This data suggests that social activities do make a difference—and that they shouldn’t be offered as one-offs. Embedding social activities into the regular flow of organizational life signals their importance and increases the chances that everyone will participate.

5. Keep social activities simple.

We also tested what types of social activities participants would like to see in the future. We asked them how they would respond to the opportunity to participate in the eight social activities at work (regardless of whether the activities were currently being offered) under various circumstances. In one scenario, for example, participants were asked to imagine that their department was offering a free lunch to socialize with coworkers informally. (They were told to assume they were already in the office and had some extra time that day.) We asked, Would you be likely to attend? And if so, how long would you stay and how much would you engage? For each of the eight activities, we captured their projected participation level, from none to full engagement.

Embedding social activities into the regular flow of organizational life signals their importance and increases the chances that everyone will participate.

We expected to find tremendous variation in activity rankings according to a range of factors: extroversion versus introversion, gender, age, relationship status, caregiver status, job tenure, how often the person worked in the office, and level in the organization. We were wrong.

In fact, three types of social opportunities were almost universally ranked highest on the list, no matter how we cut the data: free communal lunches, meetings that devote time to personal chitchat, and happy hours. These findings imply that employers don’t necessarily need to create custom experiences for different employee groups.

Moreover, each of these favored options is relatively easy to execute: duration ranges from five minutes to two hours with minimal logistical requirements. The meeting intervention requires no capital expenditure at all and can be implemented immediately. And the lunches and happy hours, which are likely to generate strong participation from a wide variety of employees, will pay off in relationship building over time.

6. Maximize each work mode for connection.

Among the top three activities, one (devoting set time in meetings to chitchat) can easily accommodate remote work modes, while the other two (free lunches and happy hours) are best suited to in-person work modes. Most food-and-drink-oriented activities were appreciated by employees. For example, participants told us how much they gained in connectivity through holiday parties, ice cream socials, and celebratory dinners. A technology executive told us, “The times that we felt socially connected would be where we order food for the office. We usually give it like an hour where everybody just gets to socialize. That’s a good morale booster/bonding-type experience and a good experience overall for the whole team.”

Dan Saelinger using AI

Others found satisfying social opportunities even when working remotely. A benefits administrator for a health insurance company said, “My team started to implement these (virtual) meetings where everyone’s voice is heard. You are called upon if you’d like to share how you’re feeling about the job itself or your personal life. Everyone really feels heard and important.” Employers can also experiment with other ways to maximize connection for remote workers, such as integrating online games into meetings, using apps to match employees with “buddies” or mentors from other locations, and encouraging dedicated social channels on Slack or other platforms.

In addition, we recommend looking for ways to include fully remote employees in occasional in-person gatherings. Study participants who worked fully remotely expressed strong interest in off-site retreats—more so than participants in either the fully in-person or the hybrid group.

The takeaway is that socializing isn’t something that can happen only at the office. There are creative ways to help employees build relationships no matter where they work. The key is to be intentional and leverage the unique opportunities that each work mode provides.

7. Actively recruit participants.

Even with a well-designed social architecture in place, organizations may fail to engage their loneliest employees. Unfortunately, lonely people are often wary of social overtures because they do not trust that they will be truly welcomed and accepted by the other people—behavior that scientists call “maladaptive social cognitions.” We see evidence of this pattern in our research results: Participants in the highly lonely group said that they expected to engage less heartily in the eight activities than those who weren’t lonely. In other words, our data shows that lonely employees might hold back when social opportunities are presented.

Subscribe to our Biweekly Newsletter

Leadership

The qualities of the most effective leaders are always changing. Read our latest.

The good news is that initial resistance can often be overcome with targeted and sincere recruitment efforts. For example, an administrative assistant in our study told us that when she first joined her company, she felt lonely but kept to herself. One day, her team decided to go out for lunch together and invited her. She was worried about feeling awkward, so she declined. But they pressed her to come along. “I did end up taking my lunch with them,” she recounted, “and we had so many things in common! After that, I felt like I could go to them about anything. If we have a ton of work, we work as a team to get things done. If we see someone struggling, everyone will lend a helping hand at work. So that was the first time that I felt socially connected while at my job.”

No one wants to be steamrollered into “forced fun” activities. Nonetheless, personal and persistent invitations can go a long way toward engaging reluctant employees in social opportunities at work.

. . .

Work loneliness is an epidemic, but our research shows that a cure is within reach. It is possible to improve employee social connections by adopting metrics, shifting cultural values, building slack into the work system, adding simple yet effective social activities on a regular basis, and personalizing outreach. The result will be a happier, healthier, more productive workforce.