A new study shows a quarter of all respondents said they have no friends on the job, and 64 percent reported feeling lonely at work.

BY BRUCE CRUMLEY @BRUCEC_INC

Photos: Getty Images

The growing number of companies requiring employees to spend more days, or even the full work week, in the office helped drive workplace occupation rates in July to their highest mark since 2019. But despite an average 80 percent of workers now being back at their desks each week compared to their pre-pandemic levels, an alarming number of people say they still feel lonely at work. That perception is one that managers need to resolve in the interests of both isolated employees and their performance of their businesses.

As Inc. reported earlier this year, the rising number of people feeling cut off from coworkers, even as they all pursue work in the same relatively confined space, has led several organizations to sound alarms about the phenomenon. Among the loudest of those was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which recently called spreading workplace loneliness a risk for “companies that significantly

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