In workplaces near and away,
empty cubicles gleam and Zoom calls hold sway.
Something is missing in the office this year
Isolation and gloom have taken the cheer.
Could it be something sinister, sneaky, and mean?
Has the Grinch stolen teamwork from the office routine?
If only the state of the modern workplace were a Seussian tale. It would certainly be convenient to have a culprit to blame for soaring burnout, dropping engagement, and a dearth of teamwork. We’ve swapped collaboration for isolation. Polarization has pulled people apart, leaving disconnection and distrust under the Whoville tree. We’re ending 2024 downright unhappy–80% of Americans are dissatisfied at work and beyond.
Sadly, it’s going to take more than a fairytale change of heart to deliver a happy ending to this workplace drama. But we can’t even begin to rewrite the story until we understand the Grinch-like forces that stole our workplace camaraderie in the first place. No doubt social anthropologists and historians will be examining this imperfect storm for decades, but here’s a quick take.
The Pandemic Hangover
The pandemic changed everything—how we work, live, and connect. Remote and hybrid gave us unprecedented flexibility but also sparked “always on” burnout and anxiety inducing RTO mandates. A wave of YOLO triggered The Great Resignation. Fight-or-flight became our default state, leaving us distrustful, disconnected, and exhausted.
The Rise Of Remote Everything
“Remote everything”–work, school, shopping, healthcare, and socializing–compressed a decade of digital transformation into months. This delivered incredible accessibility, flexibility and efficiency, but also deepened the digital divide for those without technology access, blurred work-life boundaries and fueled loneliness. Screens connect us, but they need extra work and attention to keep our interactions meaningful.
Disconnection At Every Level
Deepening disconnection infected teams, leadership, and workplace culture. The 2024 Gallup global workplace report found that 77% of workers are disengaged, with significantly high levels of stress and worry. Relationships suffered. Team camaraderie faded. Leaders lost touch with their people. This contributed to a loneliness epidemicthat’s costing businesses $154 billion a year through soaring absenteeism and productivity loss.
Social Media Echo Chambers
As people retreated from each other, they sought solace in social media, finding others who think like they think and believe what they believe. Rife with “fake news” from questionable sources, this pulled us further apart. Disinformation—named as the #1 global risk by the World Economic Forum—bleeds into the workplace, creating distrust, polarization, and fracturing teams.
Political Polarization
Wars on several fronts and an acrimonious U.S. election further divided the workplace. An astonishing 85% of workers say they engage in regular workplace conflict. This kind of polarization erodes trust, relationships, and performance. Plus, workplace conflict wastes 2.8 hours a week and costs employers a staggering $359 billion a year. If we can’t even speak civilly to each other, it only stands to reason that collaboration and teamwork suffer.
The Cult Of Individualism
Already a culture that glorifies hero CEOs, lone geniuses and “rock star” employees, the pandemic fostered “every man for himself” thinking as we retreated to our respective corners and sought refuge in our self-aggrandizing online echo chambers. Collective values took a hit and remote workers became hyper-focused on proving their individual productivity, deepening the cultural lean toward me over we.
The Tyranny Of Busyness
Our inboxes overflow, Slack notifications never sleep, and meetings multiply like rabbits. In this cacophony, deep collaboration takes a backseat. Constant digital interruptions make it harder to focus, let alone connect on a human level. We wear busyness like a badge of honor, but over-packed schedules leave no room for connection or collaboration. True teamwork requires time—and space—to thrive and we’re no longer investing what’s needed.
Culture As A Fair-Weather Friend
When business is booming, companies celebrate their shared values, mission and community. But when times get tough, culture initiatives are the first to go. This inconsistency erodes trust and loyalty. The antidote to disengagement is building a healthy work climate but many CEOs have–rather perplexingly– chosen to hyper-fixate on counting key card swipes and ordering people back to work, claiming the office as a proxy for culture.
The Downslide Of Diversity
After a post-2020 surge, one moment this year said it all about the recent downslide of DEI. In October, PwC divested its much-vaunted CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion program to SHRM. No CEO spins off something they believe is critical to the business. Despite clear evidence (companies with diverse teams outperform their peers by as much as 39% and 80% of workers want to work for a company that values diversity and inclusion), there’s a C-suite disconnect about its importance. Until CEOs accept that inclusion is essential to their business, the proliferation of diverse perspectives is doomed to falter, further eroding employee trust.
Treating People As Expendable
Layoffs, once more of a last resort, are now routine—even for profitable companies. In 2023, they surged 98% and have stayed high, with Big Tech leading the charge, Research proves that downsizing rarely pays off long-term, eroding trust, culture, and community. Yet some companies, like Meta, cut 22% of their workforce while profits soared. Treating people as expendable might boost earnings today, but it destroys the future of work.
While disheartening, this litany of woes makes it make sense how we got here and why work felt particularly mean and miserable this year. We’ve never needed teamwork more to address the challenges (see above!) and opportunities (AI!) we face. But our teams are falling apart–66% of knowledge workers are unhappy with how their team works together.
We don’t need to join hands and sing, or grow our hearts three sizes. But rebuilding teamwork does demand intention. We need to prioritize human connection, foster collaboration, and rebuild trust if we want to reinvent the future of work in a way that works for all of us.
If 2024 was the year of disconnection, let’s make 2025 the year we choose connection.
Or as Dr. Seuss might say...
It isn’t the office, the screens, or the place,
tI’s the smiles, the trust, the connections we trace.
Teamwork lives on where we dare to create,
Where purpose meets people, and courage meets fate.
First published in Forbes.com.
