How to improve connection in the workplace: What surprised EX leaders most

Being in the room where it happens: A webinar recap

The Human Connection Study report is available for anyone to download. The data stands on its own.

But there’s a conversation about the data that happened once—in the room where 45 HR and internal communications leaders gathered virtually with Ingenuity Design founder Greg Stewart and Jason Lauritsen, founder of Connected Performance Group.

Before getting started, Jason asked everyone in the room one question: How are you feeling right now?

Curious. Intrigued. Time-crunched. Meh.

That raw, honest snapshot is the reality of showing up as a people leader today. It also set the right tone for an unvarnished discussion on how to improve connection in the workplace.

If you couldn’t be in the room with us live, here is what unfolded—and what it reveals about designing conditions for employee connection across your organization. 

The research behind the real talk

This marks Ingenuity’s third study on workplace connection. To get a more comprehensive picture this time, we paired qualitative insights with quantitative scale:

• Phase 1: Partnered with Connected Performance Group to engage 806 employees through open-ended qualitative research.
• Phase 2: Validated findings at scale via Energage’s database of 286,000+ anonymized employee records across 1,600+ organizations.

We don’t study connection to prove it matters—leaders already know it does. We study it to unpack the mechanics: why it works, where it breaks down, and how organizations can design the environment for it to occur.

The research further shaped our definition of connection. Connection is not someone. It’s something. Connection is the experience of meaningful engagement with something that matters to you.

Connection is relational, personal, and organizational. Most importantly, connection is felt, not given. Leaders cannot hand it to employees via mandates or programs; they can only build the conditions for it to thrive.

Remote work vs. office: The connection finding that stopped the room

The chat exploded when we presented the data on remote work vs. office connection levels: 

• Fully on-site, non-manager employees are the most disconnected group in the entire study.
• Fully remote employees report the highest levels of overall connection.

As one internal comms leader noted in the chat, the finding felt “almost counter-intuitive.” But the room immediately got it. Being physically near someone does not equal feeling connected to them.

Proximity doesn’t create connection. Intentional design does.

If you’ve been asking why return to office mandates alone do not strengthen connection, this stat reveals the gap: bringing people into the same office is not a substitute for intentionally building communication and culture. 

The precondition for connection: Creating psychological safety in the workplace 

Before any culture or communication program works, there is a strict precondition. Sixty percent of disconnected employees in our study report they cannot be themselves at work.

Employees can’t connect if they can’t be themselves (aka Identity Congruence).

A DEI practitioner in the room described identity congruence as the “throughline for everything his team does”. He’s right. If an employee feels forced to mask who they are, no amount of manager training or corporate messaging will likely establish real connection. 

Fostering psychological safety at work isn’t a soft initiative—it is the required baseline for authentic workplace connection to take root. 

Connecting through managers: How to build psychological safety in teams

The comment that stayed in the room longest came from an HR leader in Michigan:

“The tough part is having leadership pay just as much attention to their employee relationships as they do to business results.”

That isn’t just an observation—it’s a systemic frustration leaders have been carrying for years. The data beneath that frustration shows that manager-driven connection comes down to two foundational elements:

1. Does my manager genuinely listen to me?
2. Can I be honest with them without fear?

Together, these two factors account for 75% of whether an employee feels supported by their manager. 

When thinking about how to build psychological safety in teams and connection, organizations often make the mistake of treating low connection as an individual manager skill issue. But managers shouldn’t carry this alone.

True manager enablement for employee experience requires the organization to set up managers for success. Organizations that invest in the conditions for connection equip managers with ongoing support, training, tools, messaging, and operational flexibility. 

Designing conditions for connection, not adding programs

The organizations getting this right aren’t stacking on extra initiatives. They are designing systemic conditions for connection—refining how leaders communicate, removing barriers to manager-employee connection, and signaling every day that who employees are at work genuinely matters.

Get in the room for the next conversation

The research gives you the stats, but the real magic happens in the dialogue. 

• Watch the full conversation about workplace connection between Greg Stewart and Jason Lauritsen.
• Download The Human Connection Study dataset and connection framework.