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The Science of Belonging: Why Your "Weak Ties" are the Secret to Your Next Career Move

  • Apr 16
  • 18 min read

Updated: Apr 23

Two people laughing while holding coffee cups labeled "HCL" in a cozy café. A laptop with "HSL" is on the table, creating a joyful mood.
Image Source: AI-generated via Gemini

In a world where 50% of the population is lonely, building meaningful relationships is no longer just a "soft skill"—it is a critical survival strategy. This week, Raakhee welcomes Dr. Tracy Brower, a PhD sociologist and award-winning author of Critical Connections and a VP at Steelcase to talk about the Science of Belonging. We explore why people are willing to trade a 10% salary bump for a sense of belonging, the decline of social skills in the digital age, and the surprising power of weak ties in advancing your career.


BETA IMAGINATION LAB - Call for Participants

Plus, Raakhee announces the launch of the Beta Imagination Lab, a free opportunity to help you reinvent your career through behavior science, strategy, narrative psychology and futures work.


Learn more and apply below, by 30 April 2026:



Further Information on Dr. Tracy Brower:


The Crisis of Global Loneliness

Dr. Brower highlights that 50% of people globally report feeling lonely, with depression and anxiety reaching record highs.

  • Impact of Connection: Meaningful relationships are critical to physical, emotional, and cognitive well-being.

  • Societal Implications: Statistically, incidents of civil unrest, violence, and war increase as friendship levels within a society decrease.

  • Purpose vs. Loneliness: Research shows that individuals with a stronger sense of purpose report lower levels of loneliness.


Science of Belonging in the Workplace

The workplace has become a primary "center of gravity" for connection as traditional community anchors like neighborhood interactions decline.

  • The Value of Belonging: Roughly 50% of employees would accept a 10% salary decrease in exchange for a genuine sense of belonging at work.

  • Homophily vs. Diversity: While humans are naturally attracted to those who are similar (homophily), people report being happiest when their network is 50% diverse.

  • Diverse Friendships: 81% of people report that they make their most diverse connections at work, as professional projects force interaction across different worldviews.




Building Connections in a Hybrid World

With remote and hybrid work here to stay, maintaining social capital requires more intentionality.

  • Declining Social Skills: Younger generations are increasingly reporting a decline in their social skills and comfort with face-to-face interaction.

  • The Power of Weak Ties: While close friends are important, statistically, new jobs and opportunities come from weak ties—people we don't know as well who have access to information outside our inner circles.

  • Virtual Proximity: To build rapport remotely, Dr. Brower suggests keeping cameras on to capture non-verbal cues (which account for 93% of information exchange) and spending the first few minutes of calls on personal check-ins.


Maintaining and Evolving Networks

Relationships naturally evolve, with research suggesting that 75% of a person's network turns over every seven years.

  • Shared Experiences: Bonding is most effective when people "roll up their sleeves" and complete important tasks together rather than through forced social activities like escape rooms.

  • Volunteering: A practical way to build new connections and boost well-being is through community volunteering, which provides a natural container for interaction, especially for introverts.


*Disclaimer: The text in this post is AI-generated from an original video podcast - applicable data sources, references and/or the episode transcript are provided below.


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Episode Transcript:

Raakhee (00:00)

Dr. Tracy Brower -award-winning author of The Secrets to Happiness at Work a TEDx talk that has been viewed over 8.6 million times,


Tracy: (00:09)

People globally are lonely, levels of depression, anxiety, and mental health issues are at record


At a global scale. If you look at the incidents of violence, unrest, civil unrest, war, those increase globally and country by country as friendship


Raakhee (00:30)

You've cited that people would take, I think about 50 % of people would take a 10 % decrease in salary for this sense of belonging in the


Tracy: (00:40)

We tend to be attracted to people who are a lot like us. That's called homophily.


Raakhee (00:46)

It's making me think of the show that is so popular right now, Shrinking.


Tracy: (00:50)

Yes, my husband's watching it, he likes


People are increasingly reporting their social skills are declining, and the younger people are, the more likely to say that they have declining social


Those are called weak ties, people that we don't know as well. But statistically new jobs and new opportunities come from weak ties significantly more than closer.


Your point is such a good one. One thing that has huge payoffs is ...


Raakhee (01:18)

Hello and welcome back to Signal Shift with me, Raakhee.


So I want to start off with something really important for this week and that is that we will be running a Beta Imagination Lab pretty soon. It is an amazing program. It brings together behavior science, psychology, futures work, narrative psychology, so many strategic tools to really help guide people who are in a place where they are either stuck they're in between opportunities, they know something has to shift with the work they're going to do in the future but they don't know how to almost redesign and reinvent their careers and so this imagination lab is to help people through that journey and so that you come out out of this lab with that reimagined career.


Right now we are looking for just a handful of beta testers for who this will be completely free. just follow the instructions. I'll put it down in the description box.



Our workplaces are in a strange place. We need to use AI while we simultaneously fear it taking our jobs. We need to work remotely, but we have a deeper reliance on our networks to even be considered for a job.


Education is shifting dramatically as is the benchmark for skills that will be sustainable in the future. You know, it's really hard to know which direction to take, But there is one thing that we can be sure of and that's humans, that's us people coming together, solving big problems together as it's always been done. Our connections are critical and today we are going to be speaking to a very special guest.


Dr. Tracy Brower the author of Critical Connections, which offers a pragmatic blueprint for building meaningful relationships in a disconnected world. A very warm welcome Tracy, thank you for your time.


Tracy: (03:13)

Yeah, thank you for having me. Looking forward to our conversation.


Raakhee (03:16)

I'll share a little bit more about Tracy. Tracy is a PhD sociologist and a global 50 thinker. She's dedicated to studying the intersection of happiness, community and the future of work. As the vice president of workplace insights for Steelcase and a senior contributor to Forbes and Fast Company, she spent over 25 years helping global organizations navigate the evolving landscape of human connection and fulfillment.


She is the award-winning author of The Secrets to Happiness at Work and Bring Work to Life, and of course her newest book, Critical Connections. Tracy's work, including a TEDx talk that has been viewed over 8.6 million times, pretty amazing. It's for anyone looking to foster belonging and joy in both their professional but also their personal lives.


I think let's let's start off with that big question. Why are our connections so critical? What does it mean? Why is it so important?


Tracy: (04:15)

Oh my gosh, it's the question of the day. 50 % of people globally are lonely, levels of depression, anxiety, and mental health issues are at record highs. And our connections are absolutely critical to our wellbeing at all levels, our physical, our emotional, our cognitive wellbeing. Friends give us a sense of purpose. In fact, purpose and loneliness are connected. When we have more purpose, we have less loneliness.


A lot of times because we feel a sense of importance, we feel a sense of impact when we're connected with our community. And it's fascinating connections even have importance at a global scale. If you look at the incidents of violence, unrest, civil unrest, war, those increase globally and country by country as friendship decreases.


We just need to know the people around us. We just need to care about and understand and appreciate all the people that are around us. So connections are important at lots of different levels, individual, team, organizational, and even societal.


Raakhee (05:26)

At the social personal level we understand its importance, it's so fulfilling for all of us, but I think in the workplace it becomes quite a different almost challenging concept because you have hierarchy, you have title and you have monetary reward, right? You have a system almost based on competition and then you need to still build connection and relationship so


Yeah, when we say we look for belonging, and I think you've spoken about this, right? You've cited that people would take, I think about 50 % of people would take a 10 % decrease in salary for this sense of belonging in the workplace. But what is it? What is it belonging in the workplace that we yearn for? What does it mean?


Tracy: (06:10)

That trade off of 10 % salary. Of course, we want a reasonable and fair salary. But there are other things we want as well from our work experience. And one of the things that's true is that we don't get a sense of belonging just from being with other people. We get a sense of belonging from a shared sense of social identity. And so work is an exceptional place to get a sense of belonging because we're showing up together. We're rolling up sleeves to get good work done.


We're on a team that's sharing mutual outcomes and that sense of belonging is important at work because we've lost it in other places. We don't talk to the barista, we order on the app, we don't talk to the checkout person, we get the delivery at our door. So we're not getting a sense of belonging kind of in our communities or our neighborhoods in the same way we used to. We may still be getting some but maybe not as much as we used to. So work is this important center of gravity.


The other thing that we all tend to do is we tend to be attracted to people who are a lot like us. That's called homophily. We are sort of naturally attracted to people who look like us and sound like us and think like us. And the interesting research is that when about 50 % of our network is diverse, we're actually happiest. About 50 % of people like us, about 50 % of people who are diverse from us. And work actually is where we often make our more diverse connections. 81 % of people say they make their more diverse friends at work, because we're just thrown into projects together. So work is just an especially good place as well to meet people with different points of view, who can challenge us, who can offer different kinds of worldviews and different kinds of thinking.


Raakhee (07:57)

It's making me think of the show that is so popular right now, Shrinking.


Tracy: (08:01)

Yes, my husband's watching it, he likes it.


Raakhee (08:05)

Yeah, yeah, and it really shows these strong connections formed really through work and, you know, sort of friendship groups that come together and how that has to become your support system in times that are challenging for all of us in different ways.


Tracy: (08:21)

Yeah, it's really interesting when you look at the dynamics of work. one thing that's cool about work is we tend to know people for a longer period of time. Even if we're shifting jobs every one, one and a half years, it's still we can know people over that period. We have continuity. We also see people in ebbs and flows. Like we see them on the day they're on top of the world. We see them on the day when they're struggling with that really tough project. And so that builds relationship.


And then the cool thing about work that makes it especially relevant is it's both a task and a relationship opportunity. Like we run into somebody at the coffee machine and we talk about their child's graduation or they're you know moving to a new house or whatever's going on at a kind of a relationship level and we connect as people and we get to know them on task basis right so oh what about that customer thing or how about that project or hey what do you think about such and such that task and relationship mix so we're is especially good at building belonging for continuity, for ebbs and flows, and for both task and relationship parts of our interactions.


Raakhee (09:30)

I think the thing with relationships is you do need proximity and work gives you that. That's why school gives you that and then the next natural place is work. I think now we have this challenge of remote work. Since COVID, really, it's changed so much.


I started my career at a time when it was very much about personal relationships and it was so different. And I think about kids now who some are going straight into remote jobs from the get-go. How do you maneuver that and how do you build connections when it's remote work?


Tracy: (10:06)

Right, and we know remote work is here to stay. We know hybrid is here to stay. We saw hockey stick growth of hybrid and remote work, and now we expect to see that continue based on research at University of Chicago and Stanford in conjunction. The other thing that we know statistically is that people are increasingly reporting their social skills are declining, and the younger people are, the more likely to say that they have declining social skills. I'm not comfortable having a conversation, holding out like hands, mixing and mingling, all the things.


And so how do we build relationships hybrid and remote? I think the first thing is we just really need to invest time, like really invite someone for a remote coffee or make sure that we don't just hang up right after that call, maybe spend another four minutes just saying, you know, how's it going? Or how do we think that went? Maybe even spend a little bit of time at the beginning of a call, just kind of talking about the weather or the fanm or those personal elements. When we know people personally, we tend to follow up and follow through more effectively.


So while those may seem fluffy, they actually pay us back. The other thing we can do from a remote and hybrid perspective is to just have cameras on as much as possible. We relate to each other non-verbally. 93 % of the information we exchange is non-verbal. The tone of our voice, the manner of speech, our eye contact, our posture, whether we're leaning in or leaning back. And frequency is important too. You know, if we don't talk to each other as much, then we don't have that sense of proximity to your point, but when we have a little bit more of a drum beat or a cadence to that interaction, when we are intentional about that interaction, that builds relationships from a distance as well.


Raakhee (11:57)

You mentioned within there I think really important words which was kind of the payback right from that and I think we're also moving into a time of this concept of social currency. what is that, what should we understand about that and why does it make these connections even more critical?


Tracy: (12:15)

When we can go to more people for advice or coaching or mentoring or support that tends to actually build our sense of belonging and our mental well-being. The thing that happens within organizations is that the, when we have denser networks, something called organizational citizenship rises. We just feel obligated to the people in our company or our organization in a really good way. Organizational citizenship drives things like follow up and follow through and pro-social behavior like listening or taking responsibility. So those networks are so important. And the thing that is also interesting as we think about social currency or social capital is that we want to build those networks before we need them. When we need them, we need them to already be in place.


We can't just start creating them when we need them. there's just really, really interesting research about think about your networks and your relationships in concentric circles. So in the inner circle are your two or three closest friends and then your five and then your ten and then you're out to about 150 of people that you can really kind of know and keep track of what's going on in their life.


And then we have so many more. Those are called weak ties, people that we don't know as well. But statistically new jobs and new opportunities come from weak ties significantly more than closer ties because by definition weak ties have access to information that we don't have in our own networks or that people close to us don't have. So social capital, social currency is about maintaining those relationships both close and far and then being able to just kind of stay in touch, stay in mind and make sure that we have those networks in place when we need them.


Raakhee (14:10)

I love that, myhusband has a colleague, a friend and I think another challenge we face in the world is migration. I'm somebody who's moved, moving around the world, we move jobs, there's that right? But some people inherently understand I think that concept of maintaining connections and my husband has a former colleague who every two to three and he's in Australia, he's in another country but every two to three years that's it, it's nothing more but you get that call and it just maintains that connection, right?


It's nothing deeper, stronger, but you're never gonna forget this person, so when they do need something from you one day, it's absolutely fine for them to reach out. And we both always comment on how brilliant that is and how we need to be better at doing that. how do you, aside from that sort of example, how do we maintain connections once we've made them?


Tracy: (15:08)

Yeah, such a good question because 75 % of people make their friends at work and proximity is the number one determinant of relationship. You mentioned proximity before. when you just see people, it's easy to keep up with them and keep track of them. And how do we maintain relationships when our jobs change, when our locations change, when our regions change? I think one of the things we can do is to let go of people as a close tie, and acknowledge the value of them being a weak tie, like your husband's example, right?


Like, there's that's a really positive thing that you know someone and have that long lasting relationship, even if you're not talking to each other once a week. Because if we try to maintain all of those relationships on a close basis, we would drive ourselves crazy, we would never have time in our day. So I think one is to know that networks evolve. There is some interesting data that 75 % of your network turns over every seven years.


And interestingly, we tend to have friend archetypes. So you have certain types of people that you're especially attracted to. And if you think about your own network, you can say, yeah, I do, I do like that kind of person. Anyway, so one of the things we can do, I think, is to accept that evolving nature and just really value weak ties. think another thing that we can do is just really transition people into different roles in our lives.


So like when we worked together, oh my gosh, we saw each other every day, we were confidants, we gave each other, you know, coaching about our careers. We're maybe not going to be able to do that anymore because one of us changed jobs, but now we can be that monthly coffee friend to just kind of be a more objective point of view or a more distant kind of bigger perspective point of view. So think we can shift people into different roles. The third thing I think we can do to stay connected over time and maintain relationships is to really seek common experiences. That is one of the things that bonds us.


When we went to the volunteer activity together that our work team did, or we struggled through that, we had that terrible boss and we survived it together, right? Like we've got those common experiences. And when our lives change, sometimes those common experiences change as well. Like our children graduated, we're not sitting at soccer games anymore or violin concerts anymore. But when we seek those common experiences, experiences very intentionally. Let's join a yoga class together or let's think about, I don't know, finding a new coffee place once a month and exploring the city. Sharing common experiences is a really important way that we bond. So that's another way that we can maintain relationships is to find new common experiences.


Raakhee (18:02)

Yeah, yeah. That's all so practical, useful. It's things we can really do, you know, it makes a lot of sense. the other question that I guess came up for me was, this is really more with businesses and corporates and to your point is kind of creating these experiences, these shared experiences. But from an organizational perspective, it seems that while there's a focus on okay wellness initiatives and giving people yoga classes and things like that and mental health support those sorts of things. you know aside from okay let's do this team activity I personally I wonder if belonging and creating sort of these shared experiences is something that companies are good at or even try hard enough. What has your experience been?


Tracy: (18:46)

Yeah, I think companies are learning. think increasingly companies are realizing how much of a role they need to play in terms of wellbeing and connection. I think many of them are doing their best, but they're learning and evolving as well. One thing I think some companies are doing really well is affinity groups. And these have been around forever, right? We used to call them employee resource groups or, you know, common interest groups, those continue to be a really great idea.


The motorcycle enthusiasts group, the runners group, the young mom or young parents group. Those are a really good idea because again, that's shared experience. We've even seen like social young professionals or I just saw a brand new one that was like seasoned professionals. So I thought those were very, very politically correct to call the seasoned professionals. But we're giving advice, we're building social currency and social capital.


Another thing that think companies can do and are starting to do is recognizing how much bonding comes through the work that we do together. We get a certain amount of bonding from escape rooms or, you know, don't know, pasta making classes together. But even more important is when we do important work together. So when we have common goals, when we're on a team and really rolling up sleeves, that creates a ton of bonding. So companies can do that as well.


Raakhee (20:13)

Tracey, in wrapping us up then, I think the last thing I'd like to leave everybody with one sort of very, very practical takeaway, and you've actually given us so many throughout this conversation, which I think will help people realize that it is easy to build connections. But if somebody had to do one thing after listening to this conversation to kind of reconnect with all friends or, you know, re-engage with their communities within which they live, anything like that.


What's that one thing that people are empowered in? You may not realize they are empowered, but are empowered to be able to do just after listening to this call.


Tracy: (20:49)

Your point is such a good one. We're so empowered to reach out and make those connections. One thing that has huge payoffs is volunteering in your community. Like just reach out and see about the soup kitchen or see about the, you know, sheer wardrobe for work or the see about, you know, reading books to children in a school. We get a wonderful sense of connection. We meet new people, particularly if people are more introverted. These can be kind of natural ways to connect because we're not trying to make everybody an extrovert necessarily.


We're just wanting to make sure that we have the critical connections that we need for our physical and cognitive and emotional well-being. So volunteering in your community is just a really easy practical way and sometimes that's volunteering through work, right? A lot of workplaces have opportunities for us to volunteer with our co-workers. So it's a really great win-win-win kind of opportunity that is easy to do.


Raakhee (21:47)

That's beautiful and a great reminder to all of us. Tracy, thank you so much for your time. I know how busy you are, so we really do appreciate this. This was such phenomenal advice So thank you so much for being here.


Tracy: (22:00)

Thank you. I so appreciate it. Thanks for the conversation.


Raakhee (22:02)

Thank you so much for listening and being here. An important announcement for this week is, and I will post about it on the YouTube channel as well, we will be running a


Beta Imagination Lab pretty soon. So this is our first offering. It's been in the works for months. It is an amazing program. It brings together behavior science, psychology, futures work, narrative psychology, so many strategic tools to really help guide people who are in a place where they are either stuck they're in between opportunities, they know something has to shift with the work they're going to do in the future but they don't know how to almost redesign and reinvent their careers and so this imagination lab is to help people through that journey and so that you come out out of this lab with that reimagined career for the future that's really going to be there, not one we hope or is based on current realities. Our world is changing.


Right now we are looking for just a handful of beta testers for who this will be completely free. It's your chance to participate in this before it becomes a paid offering. So if that is something you're in the middle of struggling with right now or thinking about and you are ready to participate and engage and you have the time and you can commit to something like this then yeah just follow the instructions. I'll put it down in the description box.


You've just got to fill out a form and we'll be in touch and take it from there. and I will do a post about it on the channel as well. Subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss out on anything. Just go to horizonshiftlab.com and click on join. you'll see that in the top menu so just hit join, join the newsletter so you get these kinds of updates as well.


If you want to take part in this offering for free, it's something that's going to be starting in May. Okay, so more details will be shared in a couple other ways and in the description box below. But yeah, you know, definitely apply and I think it might be a really amazing opportunity if that's the phase of life you're in right now. So thank you for being here and listening as always. We will catch you again next time. Bye for now.

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