Building Belonging Is Harder in Hybrid Work

Employees who work from the office are more likely to feel like they belong to a team. When you share the same space as your co-workers, you are more likely to share a personal story with them, to share a coffee, to share a moment with them, and to build a connection. When you work from home, these moments of connection do not happen organically or spontaneously, and it is harder to feel connected and like we belong to a team. Being in the office, we can easily have lunch with a co-worker or go to their desk to ask a question; when I worked in an office in pre-pandemic times, I would always start my day with some ice-breaker conversations with people sitting next to me. We would talk about our commute to work, about any story that happened on our morning commute, about our plans for the weekend; these simple conversations made me feel connected and close to my co-workers. Some of the top issues reported by employees who work remotely include an increased sense of isolation, a lack of social connection, an ‘us versus them’ mentality, and even a fear of missing out (FOMO). Some symptoms associated with isolation include increased stress levels, burnout, and feelings of exclusion. Some have even called this phenomenon ‘the belonging tax’.

At the organizational level, the belonging tax equates to a drop in employee engagement due to a drop in the employee experience, which could lead to lower job satisfaction. Managing employees in hybrid work is a balancing act. According to research carried out in 2021 by Canadian-based partners, inclusive workplace learning company Dialectic, and intranet software platform Jostle, 82% of remote workers report communication obstacles, and 83% report feeling disconnected from their workplace culture.¹ Indeed, some of the challenges of hybrid work and remote work include different access to information (informal post-meeting debrief in the office), to communication channels (around the water cooler), as well as more difficulties regarding relationship building, networking, and connection. While there are some great benefits linked to hybrid work for workers (think better work–life balance, more freedom, more convenience), employees working remotely or partly remotely report among the lowest levels of belonging within their organization. Ever since the post-pandemic world has appeared, more hybrid work employees are feeling left behind in terms of connection compared to their peers returning to the office.

Another reason why it’s harder to build a sense of belonging in hybrid work is ‘proximity bias’. Research has revealed that we look more favourably on those people we see more often. Connecticut-based Synchrony Financial has told its leadership team that they cannot return to the office five days a week. Instead, they are required to work at least one day from home. DJ Casto, chief human resources officer at Synchrony Financial, says that one of the main reasons they adopted this rule was to put home-working and office-working staff on a more equal playing field. ‘From a leadership perspective, we want to make sure we look like we're supporting both groups’, he explains, noting that 85% of employees in a company-wide survey expressed a desire to work from home full time.² Some workers may feel pressured to come back into the office to get more face time with their managers (and thus more recognition, career advancement opportunities, stretch assignments, and glamour work.). Companies like Synchrony are not alone; the awareness of the proximity bias, which is the unconscious tendency to give preferential treatment to people in our immediate proximity, is pushing more employers to create rules and policies to prevent or limit this bias. Proximity bias, like any other type of bias, is a natural human inclination. If we look at our network of friends, most of us have friends who look like us, most likely from the same gender, same ethnic background, same educational background, same age group, same family background, etc. At the same time, this natural inclination can lead to unfair treatment of remote workers and hybrid workers who spend less time in the office with their managers. A Stanford research study revealed that remote workers at a large Chinese travel agency lost out to in-house staff on performance-based promotions, despite delivering higher levels of performance.³ Proximity bias is very real and can have a negative impact on remote workers’ and hybrid workers' sense of belonging in the workplace.

Belonging Boosts Performance, Engagement, and Well-being

According to the McKinsey 2021 Survey, CEOs' top priorities include sustainability, transforming in the cloud, cultivating talent, pressing the need for speed, and operating with purpose.⁴ Surprisingly, building belonging was not listed as a top CEO priority, despite all the evidence supporting the business case for belonging in the workplace. According to a 2019 EY survey, more than 40% of workers feel physically and emotionally isolated in the workplace.⁵ People require more connection with those they work with. The need for connection and significance is amongst the top human needs (along with certainty, uncertainty, growth, and contribution). If people do not feel a sense of connection and/or significance at work, it will negatively impact how they show up in the workplace. If CEOs want to grow their business, one of the first areas to look at and prioritize is to build a strong culture of belonging and inclusion. A 2019 survey by BetterUp found that high belonging is linked to a 56% increase in job performance, a 50% drop in turnover risk, and a 75% reduction in sick days. For a 10 000-person company, this would result in annual savings of more than $52 million.⁶ The study also revealed that employees with higher workplace belonging showed a 167% increase in their employer promoter score (their willingness to recommend their company to others). They also received double the raises and 18 times more promotions. Another finding by the same survey was that, unsurprisingly, feeling excluded causes us to give less effort to the team. The study was a series of experiments, in which workers were assigned to a team with two other ‘participants’ (bots programmed to act like teammates), using a collaborative virtual ball-toss game. Included workers had teammates that consistently threw them the ball, whereas excluded workers only got the ball a couple of times. After this, participants completed a simple task where they could earn money either for themselves or for their entire team. The longer participants persisted in the task, the more money they earned. What differences manifested between the excluded and included teammates? When participants were told the payouts would be shared with the team, the excluded people worked less hard than the included ones, even though it meant sacrificing earnings. When participants were told the payouts would benefit them and them alone, excluded team members worked just as much as included ones. This exercise was replicated again and again, across four separate studies.

If we want to look at this from a different perspective, let's look at what social isolation does to our health. The US Surgeon General recently stated that loneliness is a more serious health problem than opiates.⁷ Many studies link social isolation with negative health consequences including depression, poor sleep quality, poor cardiovascular function, and lower immunity.⁸ Remote work can lead to feelings of isolation and depression, which eventually impacts the business as well. Employees who feel excluded have lower immune systems and are more likely to take sick days; they are also more likely to have difficulties concentrating at work, which leads to weak decision-making and poor collaboration and communication with their colleagues.

Simply put, creating a sense of belonging at work is good for business.

Fostering Belonging Is Key in Hybrid Work

Hybrid work has fundamentally transformed how we belong and how we connect at work. As human beings, we are hardwired for human connection – at work, informal interactions and bonding constitute what makes the work fulfilling and meaningful. Small talk in the office, meeting at the office coffee station, chatting before and after meetings, or for a happy hour are key parts of the connection process with colleagues.

Now that hybrid work and remote work have become the norm for many and that the opportunities for spontaneous interactions are rare, feelings of loneliness, isolation, and disconnection are more prevalent. Lonely and isolated employees are more likely to get sick, more likely to leave the organization, and more likely to be less engaged and productive. The remedy for loneliness and isolation is camaraderie and connection at work, whether employees are remote or in the office.

To replicate the spontaneous in-person social glue we organically had in the office, employers must proactively build a connected workplace by using all the technologies, strategies, and resources that make it possible. Team leaders, managers, and senior leadership teams must be trained on how to deliberately create, through their daily actions, workplaces that help their people connect with each other, develop bonds, share knowledge, and feel connected and celebrated.

Belonging and connection fulfils one of the human needs, and it translates into better talent engagement, retention, collaboration, and productivity. Human connection also improves our well-being, our physical health, and our mental health. Social connection is so important that neuroscientists even describe it as what makes human beings the most successful species on earth: ​​‘To the extent that we can characterize evolution as designing our modern brains, this is what our brains were wired for: reaching out to and interacting with others’, writes neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman in his book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect. ‘These social adaptations are central to making us the most successful species on earth.’⁹

The real competitive advantage at work is where company culture, employee connections, and employees’ connection with the company's mission coexist. Creating a common mission that's supported by strong employee connection and appreciation significantly improves talent attraction and retention. Connected, fulfilled employees with a clear mission are more productive, more collaborative, and happier human beings. One way to foster connection, even in a hybrid work environment, is when leaders embrace empathy and vulnerability by talking about their challenges and doubts. This can help others open up and feel psychologically safe to speak up, helping everyone realize that they are having common experiences, ultimately strengthening the relationship between bosses and employees.

Hybrid work environments are a great opportunity for employers to rethink their employer brand and their employee value proposition (EVP). A 2021 McKinsey HR research study revealed that during the Covid-19 pandemic, 39% of employees struggled to maintain a strong connection with colleagues as informal social networks weakened and people leaned in heavily to the people and groups with whom they most identified.¹⁰ That is another reason why employers should invest in figuring out how hybrid social networks work best, along with other ways to help employees establish high-quality relationships, strengthen connections, and nurture trust.

A 2021 Gartner research study revealed that organizations must reinvent their employee value proposition to deliver a more human deal. The research found that providing employees with a more holistic experience increases employee satisfaction with the EVP by 15%. ‘Traditionally, organizations focus on employees as workers when they define their EVP,’ said Carolina Valencia, vice president in the Gartner HR practice. ‘Instead, employers need to see their employees as people first and foremost. Our research shows that 82% of employees say it's important for their organization to see them as a person, not just an employee, yet only 45% of employees believe their organization actually sees them this way.’¹¹

Overall, employers should focus on one objective: in the new hybrid work world, they will need to prioritize proactive measures and actions for creating connection and a sense of belonging. It's now a business imperative.