Over the years we’ve seen how strong teams connect people. The flipside is that we’ve also seen how  ‘strong personal connections’ is often rated lowest in importance for teams.

Our experience is backed up by research by Gartner which found that employees who feel well connected to their team are 25% more productive than disconnected colleagues. Yet data from Cigna also showed that ⅗ American’s classify themselves as lonely, a 7% increase on the previous year. Plus, a staggering 58% of respondents also said that they sometimes or always feel like no one knows them well at work.

So what can we do?

We’re on a mission to change this. We want and need to start talking about people and connections more openly and more often. We don’t think it’s enough to only do it when it’s mental health awareness week.

We know from experience that when leaders spend time creating solid work relationships within their teams, they’re repaid with happy, engaged employees and increased productivity.

Action

Click here to read our latest Purple Paper: a team-centred approach to organisation performance for latest insight, research and summary case studies featuring teams we’ve turned around.

Or, drop us a line and arrange to speak to one of our team whisperers who’ll be able to help you work out how you can help your employees feel more connected.

Thank you for reading!

We’ve been sharing our Bleets for six years now and the challenge of writing a single message in 140 characters has been brilliant, but it’s time for a change. Dan and Pia, who’ve authored more Bleets than we can count, have moved over to Squadify . We’ll be sticking to our tried and tested formula of one Bleet, one message but we’re giving ourselves a few more characters to do it in. And the focus?  Teams and leadership, as always.

Never want to miss a Bleet? Sign up here or keep up with Dan and Pia’s latest thinking on Squadify, click here.

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