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Finding Connection at Duke: Addressing Workplace Loneliness

How employees at Duke are tackling a national concern of social isolation and fostering meaningful connections

During the height of the COVID pandemic, Jeff Hawley learned precisely how difficult it was to get work done in his small home with three kids and a wife also working remotely next to him. Schedules conflicted, and it was chaotic.

When his Duke office in Erwin Square Plaza opened again in 2021, he quickly returned. Many others did not. The difference, he said, was noticeable.

Hawley, a Senior IT Analyst, sees that in all the ways that his office is emptier and quieter than it was when he started at Duke 13 years ago.

Meetings are on Zoom, where he can be easily distracted by internet tabs. Less time is spent in casual or impromptu conversations in his office hallway or on bus rides across campus. Previously, he got “a lot of work done in the margins,” he said, through unplanned chats with colleagues.

He loves that there is now flexibility for remote work, but the new reality has been an adjustment for him.

“I feel like everything’s really transactional nowadays,” Hawley said. “That sort of sporadic, unplanned stuff I feel like is gone and it's probably just not coming back.

“You hate to think about somebody sitting out there struggling, all alone, that wants that interaction.”

One in five employees globally report experiencing significant loneliness at work according to a . A recent Harvard Business Review , which reveals that feelings of loneliness affect not only remote workers but also those in hybrid or in-person roles, highlights common myths, including: Loneliness can be solved with in-person work and loneliness is a personal problem, not an organizational problem.

In 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy an “epidemic,” and said the physical effects of loneliness and social isolation can be the same as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. He visited Duke in 2023 to discuss the public health issue and how, as he wrote, “the harmful consequences of a society that lacks social connection can be felt in our schools, workplaces, and civic organizations, where performance, productivity and engagement are diminished.”

“Social connection — the structure, function, and quality of our relationships with others — is a critical and underappreciated contributor to individual and population health, community safety, resilience and prosperity,” Murthy wrote in “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.”

At Duke, 27% of employees who responded to a recent survey about work location preferences said that social isolation was among the challenges of working remotely, ranking it behind setting work-life boundaries. While loneliness might be exacerbated at times by the isolation of more prevalent remote and hybrid work, it also can come after significant life events such as the death of a spouse, moving for a new job or losing friends.

Lessening loneliness is more complex than simply being among others. It’s important to create meaningful connections and purposeful engagement, according to experts on the topic.

“Part of loneliness is not necessarily that you feel alone, it's that you feel disconnected and unengaged,” said Katherine Ramos, a Duke Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. “You can be going to every potential departmental activity and be in a room with so many other colleagues, but you still feel lonely. It's not really about the quantity, but it's the quality and the meaning that you're deriving from your work.”

That’s why finding and creating social connections and meaning at work on and off campus is more important than ever.

The Loneliness of Life Changes

Even before COVID changed the dynamics of work and social interaction, Debra Loban noticed a trend among clients in her work as a counselor at (PAS): More and more people reported feeling disconnected and lonely.

One reason, Loban theorizes, is that Duke attracts people from around the world. Staff, faculty and students often uproot their lives to move to Durham.

“They're leaving their foundation, leaving their community, and trying to build that here,” she said.

Many think it will take about six months to find friends and a sense of belonging in a new location. It usually takes 18 months to two years, Loban said.

“In the same way that it takes a tree years to root itself firmly, you've uprooted yourself,” she said. “Think about this whole idea of, ‘I'm firmly trying to root myself’ – that's not going to be a quick process.”

Maggie Sandy moved to the Triangle area in February 2023 when she started her role as Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications in Alumni, Engagement and Development. The move was a welcome one that brought her closer to two of her dearest Wake Forest University friends, Adam and Taylor Hoxie.

The tough part came when those friends moved away in May 2024, she said.

“I could definitely feel that it was loneliness,” she said. “But I started to ‘unjustify’ the loneliness feeling, because I thought, ‘I'm doing it to myself.’ I remember feeling like I want to be alone, but I don't want to be alone, which is the craziest thing.”

Sandy said it affected her mood at work, where her supervisor encouraged her to be kinder to herself, but she still needed to take personal days. The Surgeon General report said stress-related absenteeism attributed to loneliness costs U.S. employers an estimated $154 billion annually.

Only when Sandy’s friends came to visit for her birthday in August did Sandy realize that she wasn’t alone, despite the physical distance.

“It kind of showed me that kindness that I needed to give to myself,” she said. “It reminded me what I was feeling was loneliness, and I had been blaming myself for essentially making myself lonely by isolating myself and not wanting to be a part of anything.”

Surgeon General Murthy said that it’s vital to take care to strengthen connections and relationships by such acts as answering calls from a friend and performing an act of service. “Our individual relationships are an untapped resource — a source of healing hiding in plain sight,” he wrote in Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.

Intentional Connections

Creating intentional connections, like the one Sandy did when she visited with her friends, is the biggest step toward lessening feelings of loneliness. Ramos, the Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, encourages everyone to reflect to assess their environment and focus on what’s within their control to change.

“It's really about intentionality,” said Loban, the PAS counselor at Duke. “There's always going to be a reason that something else takes priority, and that's fine, that happens. But if you're wanting to deal with this feeling of loneliness, then that has to be a priority.”

Loban said she once recommended to a client who felt disconnected that he say hello to every person he passed in the hallway or encountered in the office, remember their names and generally practice acts of kindness.

After two weeks, the client reported on his progress. “I feel so connected,” he told her. “I feel like I have friends now.”

Being Alone Without Feeling Lonely

Mark Taylor met his husband, Billy Hagwood, soon after he moved to back to North Carolina in 2004 and started his job at Duke. They were together for more than 18 years, with Hagwood’s outsized personality and continual reinvention making their life together interesting and full.

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