Those who have more friends at work tend to stay at the company longer, but  percent of employees globally have no friends at work and over half have five or fewer total friends. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Using technology to communicate takes up nearly half of an employee's day, and it's not beneficial—especially when it makes them feel isolated and alone.

According to a new study titled “Global Work Connectivity,” from Future Workplace and Virgin Pulse, spending so much time communicating with coworkers via tech instead of in person has negative results: slightly more than half feel lonely always or very often as a result.

Related: Open-office plans kill employee communication

More and more, employees are reliant on tech to keep them in touch with colleagues, whether through e-mail (45 percent), text messaging (15 percent) or instant messaging (12 percent). Of those who said they rely primarily on e-mail, more than 40 percent said they feel lonely always or very often, are not engaged and have a high need for social connection.

“Employees can so easily get lost behind instant messages and emails,” says Rajiv Kumar, M.D. Chief Medical Officer at Virgin Pulse and president of Virgin Pulse Institute. ”True connection only happens when we pick up the phone and have a conversation, or get together in person for a discussion or meeting. I have found that having those connections is one of the strongest predictors of employee satisfaction, retention, performance and success. This study underscores the need for us to help our employees by fostering human interaction, communication and strong relationships that extend past the workplace.”

Other findings from the study include the fact that those who have more friends at work tend to stay at the company longer. Seven percent of all employees globally, according to the results, have no friends at work and over half have five or fewer total friends. The 62 percent who have five or fewer friends feel lonely either always or very often, and 72 percent say they aren't engaged, while 60 percent say they'd be more inclined to stay with their company longer if they had more friends.

This was especially true for younger employees, with Gen Z (74 percent) and millennials (69 percent) saying they'd probably stick longer, compared with Gen Xers (59 percent) and boomers (40 percent).

Companies that rely on remote workers should be aware that those who are lonely or poorly engaged are considerably more likely to quit. While the study finds that a third of employees globally work remote always or very often, and two-thirds of them aren't engaged—and just 5 percent of remote workers always or very often see themselves working at their company for their entire career, compared with 28 percent who never work remotely.

In addition, 39 percent of those who never get face time with their team are remote workers, and 43 percent of them said that more face time would help them build deeper relationships with their team. A whopping 80 percent of those who said they would have better relationships if their team communicated with them more often work remotely.

And interestingly, it's male workers who feel the loneliness and disconnection more deeply, with 57 percent of them feeling lonely at work, compared with just 43 percent of women. Introverts, too, at 63 percent, feel lonely at work more than extroverts (37 percent).

And older people suffer less from working remotely, with 36 percent of GenXers and 29 percent of boomers reporting feeling lonely at work compared with 45 percent of GenZ and 47 percent of millennials. Says the report, “Outside of the workplace, younger generations have a greater need for social connections as well.”

So what's to be done about it? According to the report, leaders can help facilitate stronger relationships between team members through team-building activities (45 pecent), social events (45 percent) and “workations” (31 percent). But just 20 percent of those surveyed said they could encourage connections using collaborative technologies, and feel that in-person experiences are more impactful.

“Technology has created the illusion that workers are connected, when in reality they feel isolated, lonely, disengaged and less committed to their organizations when overusing or misusing it,” says Dan Schawbel, Future Workplace partner. “Today's leaders need to use technology as a bridge to connection so that they can foster strong work cultures, where employee's human needs are met and supported. The best way for them to do that is through team building activities, social events and workations where workers can get to know each other on a personal level.”

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