Some of the disconnect comes from the increasing prevalence of remote work, with 53% of employees overall saying they don’t enjoy working anymore, according to a recent survey by BetterUp.
“In the past, [friendships] happened naturally. Your best friend was often the person you sat next to or worked on projects with,” says Susan Hanson, chief people officer at software company RainFocus. “That just doesn’t happen anymore.”
While some companies may think that workplace friendships are not easy to strike up when employees are remote, 62% of staff working remotely are more likely to know about their coworkers’ family or pets. That compares with 54% of those working in an office.
“Companies still need to get people together while being a virtual company,” Hanson says. “For example, plan your budgets around getting people together. If teams need to work on big projects like events, send a few more people to the events and then get a few more people in an office together to co-work. If there’s pockets of people in certain states, get them together and send some more people there.”