To be the best at their jobs, people need relationships in the workplace. Employees who feel comfortable taking work challenges to peers or problem solving in tandem are more likely to excel in their work.

They’re also more likely to be happy, as recent research has revealed. Social connections in the workplace contribute to a greater sense of life satisfaction and well-being, one study found. Another examined the relationship between isolation and burnout and found that employees experiencing loneliness “expressed a desire to be psychologically detached from their jobs for recovery.” Conversely, employee happiness leads to better outcomes, as research shows it’s “not only correlated with workplace success,” but that employee happiness actually “precedes measures of success.”

The move to hybrid work has deepened the challenge of establishing authentic workplace relationships, and it’s not going anywhere — 90 percent of businesses plan to keep a hybrid model in place and at least some of their workforce remote, according to Lenovo customer surveys. Amid this new standard for professional life, many employees are struggling to maintain meaningful relationships …

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