Connection at Work: Why Belonging Matters
A warehouse employee starts the night shift as the corporate office is shutting down. A field technician spends most of the week traveling between customer sites. A remote employee may go days without seeing a colleague face-to-face. Meanwhile, a hybrid employee comes into the office on Tuesday only to discover that most of the team chose Wednesday.
All of these employees may work for the same organization, yet their experience of connection can be remarkably different.
That matters because workplace well-being is not only about physical health, stress management, benefits, or access to wellness programs. It is also about whether people feel seen, supported, included, and part of something larger than their individual job.
The U.S. Surgeon General's Framework for Workplace Mental Health & Well-Being identifies "Connection and Community" as one of five essentials for workplace well-being, emphasizing social support and belonging as fundamental human needs.
For organizations with hybrid, shift-based, field, remote, or geographically distributed employees, creating that sense of connection requires more intention than ever.
Belonging Is More Than Getting Along With Coworkers
Belonging at work is not simply having friends in the office or enjoying an occasional team lunch.
It is the feeling that you are accepted, valued, and included. It means believing that your contribution matters, that you can participate without having to become someone else, and that there are people within the organization you can turn to when you need information, help, or support.
This overlaps closely with psychological safety.
The American Psychological Association reported in its 2024 Work in America survey that employees experiencing higher psychological safety were considerably more likely to say they felt they belonged at work than employees experiencing lower psychological safety - 95% compared with 69%. They were also more likely to say they felt comfortable being themselves in the workplace.
The same APA survey highlights another important concern: loneliness is not limited to people working alone. Forty-five percent of workers ages 18 to 25 reported feeling lonely while working, compared with 33% of workers ages 26 to 43 and lower percentages among older age groups.
An employee can participate in meetings all day and still feel disconnected.
That distinction is important. Organizations should not confuse communication volume with meaningful connection.
Why Connection Has Become More Complicated
Traditional workplaces once created many connections almost accidentally.
Employees ran into one another in hallways, shared breaks, asked quick questions across desks, ate lunch together, and met colleagues from other departments. Not every interaction was significant, but collectively these small encounters helped employees build familiarity, trust, and relationships.
Distributed work has changed that dynamic.
Microsoft's research on hybrid work found that 59% of hybrid employees and 56% of remote employees reported having fewer workplace friendships after shifting to those arrangements. In the same research, 43% of leaders identified relationship-building as their greatest challenge in remote and hybrid work.
But this is not simply a remote-work problem.
A nurse working nights may rarely interact with hospital administrators. A construction employee may spend nearly every day on a project site rather than at headquarters. A delivery driver may know customers better than coworkers. Manufacturing employees on different shifts can essentially inhabit different versions of the same organization.
Even wellness programs can unintentionally reinforce these divisions.
Consider an organization that holds a wellness fair from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at corporate headquarters. The event may be excellent, but who participates?
Office employees may attend easily. Remote workers, field staff, second-shift employees, overnight workers, and employees at satellite locations may receive an email afterward with photographs of an event they could never realistically attend.
The intended message is "We care about employee well-being."
The experienced message for some workers may be "This wasn't designed for people like me."
Belonging Has Business Consequences
Connection should not be dismissed as a "soft" workplace issue.
Research from BetterUp involving 1,789 full-time employees, along with experiments involving thousands of U.S. workers, found substantial associations between workplace belonging and outcomes including performance, turnover risk, sick days, and willingness to recommend an employer. The research reported that employees with a strong sense of belonging had 56% higher job performance and 50% lower turnover risk compared with employees reporting weak belonging.
Microsoft's research similarly found differences between employees with strong and weak workplace relationships. Employees reporting thriving relationships with immediate teammates were more likely to report better well-being and higher productivity.
These findings do not mean that adding social events automatically increases productivity by a predictable percentage. Belonging is influenced by many factors, and organizational research should be interpreted within its methodology and context.
But the broader lesson is clear: relationships affect how people experience work.
When employees trust one another, they may be more comfortable asking for assistance, sharing an idea, acknowledging a mistake, raising a safety concern, or admitting that they are overwhelmed.
Those everyday behaviors influence wellness, teamwork, learning, innovation, retention, and potentially safety.
Build Connection Into Work, Not Around It
Belonging is not created through occasional events alone. It grows through consistent, everyday interactions.
Managers can strengthen connection by checking in with employees, recognizing contributions, including quieter voices, and keeping everyone informed. Simple practices such as brief team check-ins, peer recognition, buddy systems, and cross-team introductions can also build stronger relationships.
The goal is not forced socializing, but regular opportunities for employees to know, trust, and support one another.
Design for the Employees Who Are Easiest to Miss
Organizations should ensure connection opportunities reach employees across locations, shifts, and work arrangements.
Consider who receives information, interacts with leaders, attends events, and builds relationships across teams. Offer flexible options for remote, field, evening, and overnight employees rather than designing activities primarily for headquarters staff.
Technology can support connection, but more meetings are not always the solution. Peer recognition, brief manager check-ins, employee communities, and cross-team interactions can help employees build meaningful relationships.
The goal is simple: create connection across departments, locations, shifts, and job levels.
Managers Are Critical Connection Points
For many employees, the manager is the organization.
A beautifully written corporate value about belonging means little if an employee's immediate supervisor routinely ignores ideas, provides inconsistent communication, plays favorites, or contacts employees during time off without necessity.
Managers therefore need practical skills for creating connection.
That includes listening, inclusive meeting practices, recognition, conflict management, psychological safety, supportive communication, and knowing when an employee may need additional resources.
These skills can be especially important in high-stress industries such as construction, where employees may face unique mental health and safety pressures. Wellness Workdays offers BRAVE: Building a Toolbox for Mental Health & Safety, a program developed specifically for the construction industry. BRAVE trains frontline leaders and crews to recognize warning signs, reach out to coworkers, respond supportively, and connect employees with appropriate resources.
BRAVE also illustrates why workplace wellness expertise matters. Rather than applying the same mental health approach to every workforce, trained wellness professionals can identify industry-specific risks and develop solutions that reflect employees’ actual work environments, helping strengthen both well-being and a culture where people feel supported and connected.
More broadly, the Surgeon General’s workplace framework encourages organizations to cultivate trusted relationships and emphasizes the importance of clear, consistent communication between workers and leaders.
Managers do not need to become counselors or best friends with employees. They do need to create an environment where people believe they can speak, contribute, ask questions, and receive support.
Measure Connection Like Any Other Wellness Priority
If belonging matters, organizations should measure it.
Start with a baseline.
An employee survey can include questions such as:
I feel like I belong at this organization.
I have someone at work I can turn to for support.
My manager values my contribution.
I feel comfortable sharing ideas and concerns.
I feel connected to people outside my immediate team.
I have equal access to organizational information and opportunities regardless of where or when I work.
Do not stop at company-wide averages.
Compare results, where appropriate and while protecting confidentiality, across work arrangements, locations, shifts, departments, tenure groups, and job types.
An overall belonging score of 82% may appear encouraging. But if headquarters employees score 90% while field employees score 62%, the average conceals the real story.
Organizations can also examine related indicators such as turnover, absenteeism, participation in wellness programs, employee referrals, psychological safety, engagement, internal mobility, and use of employee support resources.
Then test interventions and measure again.
Did introducing structured shift handoffs improve connection between teams? Did manager training improve psychological safety? Did a buddy program help new remote employees develop relationships more quickly?
Measurement transforms belonging from a cultural aspiration into something organizations can actively manage.
Connection Is Part of Workplace Wellness
The future of work will probably continue to include a mixture of offices, homes, job sites, hospitals, warehouses, vehicles, factories, stores, and other environments.
Organizations cannot assume connection will simply happen across all of them.
They have to design for it.
That does not require endless meetings, expensive retreats, or mandatory social activities. It requires paying attention to the everyday systems and behaviors that tell employees whether they are included.
Start small. Ask employees where disconnection occurs. Train managers to build trust. Design wellness programs for every shift and location. Create opportunities for relationships across teams. Measure belonging alongside other wellness indicators.
Most importantly, remember that connection is not separate from employee well-being.
For someone working alone at home, starting a midnight shift, traveling between job sites, or sitting at corporate headquarters, one question remains remarkably consistent:
Do I feel like I am truly part of this organization?
Organizations that take that question seriously can build workplaces where employees are not simply present, but connected, supported, and able to contribute.
Learn more about our wellness certification offerings at www.institutewellbeing.org/courses.
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