How to create connection at work that doesn’t feel forced

Early in my career, a colleague and I made a shared commitment one summer to eat healthier. Salads. Smoothies. The full routine. Like many well-intentioned plans, our discipline began to fade after a few weeks. Eventually, we introduced what we jokingly called Grease Wednesdays, a weekly cheat day as a reward for all our good behavior.

Every Wednesday, one of us would head out to grab fast food, and we’d hide away in a small boardroom to indulge in our shared lack of nutritional discipline. At first, it was just the two of us, chatting with laptops closed and fries on the table.

And then coworkers began peeking into whatever boardroom we were in, curious about the laughter. Eventually, someone asked if they could join. Then another. Within weeks, we had outgrown the small meeting room. Within months, we had moved into the department’s largest boardroom to accommodate the growing crowd.

What started as a casual indulgence became a shared ritual. And without intending to, Grease Wednesdays began to change our department culture. We all began to get to know each other as individuals, with pets and families and hobbies. The ritual also smoothed tensions between departments, built friendships between unfamiliar teammates, and helped us realize we hadn’t felt all that connected before. 

Recent research shows the disconnection I witnessed in my own team is now part of a broader workplace trend. A 2025 survey of U.S. workers found nearly 40% report feeling lonely at work, and employees who lack social connection are significantly more likely to consider leaving their jobs because of it.

When people feel they belong, trust builds, collaboration accelerates, performance rises, loyalty deepens, and well-being improves. When they don’t, silos form, trust erodes, and discretionary effort fades. Take these numbers: a recent BetterUp survey found that workplace belonging leads to a 56% increase in job performance, a 50% reduction in turnover risk, and a 75% decrease in employee sick days.

THE PROBLEM WITH OVER-ENGINEERING CONNECTION

Belonging is not accidental; it’s cultural. And culture is shaped, reinforced, and protected by a leader’s vision, values, behavior, and accountability, including what I call positive accountability. But this is where many organizations misstep. When leaders notice disconnection, the instinct is often to formalize solutions with more engagement meetings, structured team building, and mandatory social events.

Yet forced connection and fun rarely produce authentic trust. In fact, over-engineering connection can make people more guarded. For instance, research cited in a study by the University of Sydney found that when team-building activities feel mandatory, they can create resentment and pushback among employees. Belonging grows best in environments that feel natural, voluntary, and human, not observed or measured.

If you want to improve connection and belonging in your workplace while avoiding forced connection, here are some steps you can take.

DESIGN INTENTIONAL SPACES

What made Grease Wednesdays powerful wasn’t the food. It was the opportunity that a casual ritual created. We had, quite by accident, built a small, repeatable, low-pressure interaction in which familiarity could grow.

Design offers a strong middle ground between compulsory team-building exercises and complete social neglect. The key here is to design small, optional, and repeatable opportunities that humanize the workplace. 

For in-person teams, you can host walking one-on-one meetings, Friday coffee drop-ins, no-agenda team lunches, or cross-department donut runs. For remote teams, you could host 15-minute morning online coffee drop-ins or no-agenda team virtual lunches, and share team celebrations of birthdays, anniversaries, and project completions. Keep it light; keep it optional; keep it ritual.

MODEL OPENNESS

Studies in organizational research find that when leaders are open, available, and accessible, employees feel more psychological safety. Psychological safety, coined by organizational psychologist Amy Edmondson, is the shared belief within a team that it is safe to take interpersonal risks, like speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, without fear of punishment, humiliation, or retribution.

To build psychological safety in teams, leaders can model openness. Do that by admitting when you don’t know something, sharing a decision you’ve reversed (and why), and publicly thanking a team member who challenged you. 

Another way you can model openness is by offering positive team accountability by sharing the successes they see and are proud of within the team. For example, one leader I work with sends out an email to his team every two or three weeks. The irregularity of timing is actually effective by design, making the email feel more authentic. 

REWARD CONNECTION, NOT JUST OUTPUT

Social psychology research shows that reciprocity in the workplace builds trust, cooperation, and positive relationships. The principle of social reciprocity, or when one recognizes and responds to positive actions, contributes to stronger workplace dynamics and mutual respect—the core components of connection and belonging.

One way to do this is to shift what gets publicly praised. If the only Slack shout-outs are for revenue, speed, and delivery, people will assume that is all that matters. 

Instead, reward connection by recapping projects in team meetings by asking, “Who helped make this possible?” You can also celebrate the people who mentor, unblock, and build bridges across teams. When helping behavior is acknowledged, rewarded, and career-relevant, connection stops being invisible labor and becomes part of how success is defined.

Full offices don’t cure loneliness, but intentional culture does. When leaders design natural rituals, model openness, and reward connection as deliberately as they reward performance, belonging is no longer accidental—and becomes part of how work actually works.

View the full article