Workplace Connection: How to Build Meaningful Relationships Without More Meetings

Learn how organisations can strengthen workplace connection through peer support, employee communities and mentoring without adding more meetings.

Less than one in five Australian workers say they are “fully engaged” at work. 

According to the 2025 ADP “People at Work 2025” report, only 16 per cent of Australian employees report high engagement; a drop from 18 per cent last year. Engagement falls to as low as 7 per cent among remote-only staff, while hybrid workers register only 15 per cent. 

That stark statistic points to a core problem at many organisations: weak workplace connection. When people don’t feel connected to peers or teams, engagement, productivity and retention suffer. 

If you rely on meetings or classic mentoring programs to fix it, you’re missing the bigger issue. Real employee connection grows in everyday interactions, not in scheduled time

TL;DR

Less than 20% of Australian workers feel fully engaged, especially in hybrid teams. True workplace connection doesn’t happen in meetings. It grows through everyday interactions, peer networks, informal mentoring, and supportive communities. 

HR leaders are shifting toward deliberate strategies: transparent communication, hybrid-friendly connection tools, continuous feedback, and platforms like Brancher that embed connection into daily workflows. 

Structured systems combined with organic engagement help employees feel valued, supported, and connected, improving engagement, retention, and collaboration.

Table of Contents

• What Happens When There is Poor Employee Connection at Work?
• What HR Leaders Are Doing to Fight Workplace Connections
  • Prioritising Culture, Transparency and Ongoing Communication
  • Building Employee Communities and Peer Networks Rather than Enforcing Top‑down Mentoring Only
  • Adopting Flexible, Hybrid Workplace Strategies — But Backing Them with Real Connection Initiatives
  • Using Modern Workplace Communication Tools for Connection, Not Just Workflows
  • Making Recognition, Feedback and Belonging Part of Everyday Routines
  • Designing Connection as Ongoing Infrastructure, Not as a One-off Project
• Why Meetings are Not Enough for Workplace Engagement
• Frequently Asked Questions

What Happens When There is Poor Employee Connection at Work?

When connection at work declines, the impacts show up quickly. Employees who feel disconnected are more likely to disengage, experience burnout and consider leaving. New starters take longer to ramp up; knowledge stays siloed. 

Peer support at work becomes ad hoc and unreliable, depending on who happens to know whom.

This is especially challenging in hybrid environments. Hybrid workplace connection cannot rely on chance conversations or physical proximity. It needs to be intentionally supported, or it fades.

Connection is not just a cultural concern. It underpins learning, performance and retention. Without it, even well-funded development and mentoring initiatives struggle to deliver meaningful outcomes.

What HR Leaders Are Doing to Fight Workplace Connections

Your program lives or dies by the first meeting. Month 1 is where you remove awkwardness, reduce confusion, and get pairs into action. When mentors and mentees know exactly what to discuss in their first meeting, they start the relationship with clarity instead of hesitation.

This email should do more than say “book your first catch-up.” It should guide them into meaningful setup work. Research shows that early expectation setting significantly improves mentoring outcomes.

What you reinforce in this email:

• Discuss purpose and expectations
• Agree on confidentiality
• Align on communication preferences
• Set meeting frequency
• Use a simple first meeting agenda

You want both people walking away with a shared understanding of why they’re meeting and how they’ll work together. When this foundation is strong, later months become easier and more productive.

HR leaders are no longer assuming connection and engagement will happen by default. Recent data signals a trend back toward deliberate design: structured practices and tools that support workplace connection; especially in hybrid and distributed environments.

Here’s what HR professionals are doing to combat disconnection:

Prioritising Culture, Transparency and Ongoing Communication

A 2025 Gartner HR survey of Australian organisations confirms that employee perceptions of workplace culture hit a three-year low of 26.4 percent in late 2024 (Q4), while the proportion of employees reporting themselves as “highly engaged” dropped to 19.6 percent. 

The survey also noted declines in perceptions of agility (11.9 percent) and innovation (16.3 percent), signalling broader disengagement trends. 

While the survey does not prescribe specific HR actions, many Australian HR teams are responding by increasing transparency, providing consistent company-wide updates, opening dialogues about organisational challenges, and ensuring visible leadership engagement. 

These strategies aim to rebuild trust, strengthen employee connection, and reduce isolation.

Building Employee Communities and Peer Networks Rather than Enforcing Top‑down Mentoring Only

Research shows complementary value in offering both informal and formal mentoring opportunities. Both informal and formal mentoring have distinct benefits. Informal mentoring fosters organic chemistry, mentee-driven goals, and flexibility, allowing relationships to develop naturally over time. 

Peer networks, cohort groups and communities of practice fall into this category and can strengthen trust, interpersonal bonds, and day-to-day support among employees. These informal relationships often become the backbone of workplace connection, especially in hybrid or distributed teams where chance interactions are limited.

Formal mentoring is useful when organisations have identified a specific development need. This might include supporting new graduates, developing front-line leaders, or retaining high-potential staff who are at risk of leaving without guidance. 

Formal programs create clarity, consistency and measurable outcomes, but they require deliberate planning. Structured matching, mentor training, and ongoing check-ins are essential to ensure that the relationships are effective and goals are being met. 

Without these foundations, even well-intentioned programs can stall or default into informal “buddy shifts,” which do not deliver the same developmental impact.

Leading HR teams are taking note. Rather than relying solely on structured formal mentoring programs, they’re increasingly emphasising peer networks, communities of practice, and cohort groups. 

These spaces support everyday discussions, knowledge sharing, and informal mentoring moments that allow relationships to deepen naturally. Combining structured programs with these organic connection points maximises engagement, learning, and long-term retention. Using an online platform like Brancher allows you to create both structured mentoring and informal support communities via online 1:1 or group chat.

Adopting Flexible, Hybrid Workplace Strategies — But Backing Them with Real Connection Initiatives

More than 80 per cent of Australian employers surveyed in 2025 expect hybrid working to remain stable or grow over the next two years. 

The AHRI report “Hybrid and Flexible Working Practices in Australian Workplaces 2025” found that 70 per cent of respondents anticipate hybrid models will stay the same, while 12 per cent expect them to increase. 

The Australian Public Service Commission references this report in its HR Insights, noting that hybrid work’s stability comes with a trade-off: over 50 per cent of employees report feeling disconnected. 

Hybrid workplace connection does not happen automatically. HR leaders are responding by embedding tools and practices that maintain relationships without mandating physical presence. 

These include digital community spaces, asynchronous communication tools, discussion forums, and structured check-ins; which are all designed to sustain peer support at work and informal mentoring in a hybrid environment.

Using Modern Workplace Communication Tools for Connection, Not Just Workflows

HR departments are increasingly expanding their technology stacks to go beyond traditional email and one-off meetings. 

According to OneAdvanced’s 12 Crucial HR Trends for 2025, organisations are investing in online learning platforms and workforce management systems that streamline administrative tasks, support workforce trends, and improve the employee experience. 

These tools also help HR focus on relationship-building, engagement, and development initiatives rather than solely task completion. 

While the report does not explicitly reference centralising group discussions, chats, or mentoring, it confirms a clear trend: Australian HR teams are leveraging modern platforms to make employee connection and engagement a more integral part of everyday work.

Making Recognition, Feedback and Belonging Part of Everyday Routines

HR leaders in many organisations are moving away from annual reviews toward continuous feedback, peer recognition, and everyday practices that build belonging. 

Reward Gateway’s Employee Engagement Trends for 2025 and Workplace Engagement Index report highlight that 43 per cent of employees cite regular recognition as the top driver of productivity. 

These practices, combined with leadership empowerment and total rewards, foster psychological safety, a sense of value, and stronger workplace connection.

SHRM supports this approach, noting that frequent feedback and recognition programs improve retention and engagement by creating belonging, particularly in hybrid and remote work environments. 

Implementing these initiatives ensures employees feel seen, valued, and connected even without additional meetings or face-to-face touchpoints.

Designing Connection as Ongoing Infrastructure, Not as a One-off Project

Forward-thinking HR strategies emphasise embedding workplace connection into ongoing organisational systems rather than treating it as a temporary initiative. Using tools like Brancher helps sustain culture, engagement, and retention over time.

Treating connection as infrastructure (not a project) reduces silos, strengthens informal mentoring, and ensures relationships and knowledge persist as part of the organisation’s daily operations.

Why Meetings are Not Enough for Workplace Engagement

Meetings give the illusion of connection, but in reality, they rarely build the relationships that drive workplace engagement. 

You’ve seen it yourself: back-to-back video calls, agenda-driven sessions, and forced check-ins leave employees exhausted, not connected. 

But the truth is, engagement doesn’t happen in a 30-minute slot on someone’s calendar.

True connection at work comes from ongoing, low-pressure interactions that fit into the flow of everyday work. 

Employees need spaces to ask questions, share insights, and offer support when it actually matters — not when the next meeting is scheduled. Peer support at work, informal mentoring, and active employee communities all thrive outside the meeting room.

Hybrid teams make this challenge even worse. Relying on meetings alone means some employees miss out entirely. Asynchronous workplace communication tools let people participate on their schedule, across locations and time zones. 

They allow mentoring relationships to grow naturally and discussions to continue beyond the start and end of a meeting.

If you want engagement to stick, you need more than meetings. You need a system (online chat, shared notes /resources or forums) that keeps people connected, supported, and interacting every day, without adding to calendar fatigue.

How Brancher Supports Healthy Workplace Connections

Connection often fails when there’s no support around it. You don’t want it to be a one-off initiative that fizzles out as soon as people get busy.  

Without structure, communities fizzle out, conversations get lost, and engagement drops. Brancher is designed to counter that by giving light structure and visibility. It becomes the infrastructure that sustains peer support, informal mentoring and long-term connection.

Brancher is built to support the full spectrum of employee connection: from peer‑to‑peer chats and group communities to one-to-one mentoring conversations; all within a secure, unified platform.

• Group spaces and communities: Teams, cohorts or interest‑based communities can have their own dedicated spaces where people share challenges, ask for advice, or exchange learnings. That gives peer support at work a home, which means people don’t need to rely on random meetings or hallway conversations for connection.
• One‑to‑one messaging and check-ins: Brancher supports informal check-ins and asynchronous conversation. Employees don’t need to schedule official sessions. They can reach out when the need arises, ideal for nurturing mentoring relationships gradually, especially in busy or hybrid teams.
• Mentoring that evolves naturally: Rather than pushing formal mentoring only, Brancher allows mentoring relationships to emerge organically from everyday interaction. Over time, those relationships can deepen without forcing extra meetings or rigid scheduling.

Because all these features live in the same tool, people don’t have to juggle multiple apps or communication channels. They know exactly where to go to connect, ask, or support; and that consistency builds habit, community and trust.

One of the impacts reported by our clients is improved engagement and reduced turnover. Through mentoring programs delivered on its platform organisations see stronger relationships, better collaboration, and retention improvements. 

In short, Brancher offers more than a tool. It offers a system; designed to embed workplace connection into everyday rhythms. 

It gives you the structure needed to sustain connection, the flexibility to allow relationships to emerge naturally, and the visibility to monitor and support engagement across your workforce.

Get in touch with our team today to see how our platform fits into your organisation. Plus, you can download our Mentoring Handbook to get practical tools, proven frameworks, and real examples to guide every step: from planning and recruitment to matching, engagement, and measurement. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What are workplace connections and why do they matter?

Workplace connections refer to the sense of belonging, relationships, and social bonds employees have with colleagues, teams, and the organisation. Strong connection improves employee well‑being, engagement, collaboration, retention and sense of purpose.

How can organisations build meaningful connections without adding more meetings?

You can build connection through informal interactions, peer‑to‑peer networks, employee communities, flexible communication tools, regular recognition and feedback, and inclusive culture practices — not just scheduled meetings.

What are effective strategies to support connection in hybrid or remote workplaces?

For hybrid or remote teams, using digital platforms for chats and community spaces, encouraging asynchronous check‑ins, organising virtual social or team-building activities, and having open, transparent communication all help maintain connection despite physical distance.

How does employee recognition and feedback influence workplace connection?

Regular recognition, feedback and expressions of appreciation build psychological safety, demonstrate employees are valued, and strengthen their sense of belonging. This fosters connection, loyalty and engagement.

Can informal mentoring or peer networks be more effective than formal mentoring programs for building connection?

Informal and formal mentoring both have value. Informal mentoring is helpful for flexibility, authenticity and natural connection, and it often strengthens peer relationships and day-to-day support. Formal mentoring is useful when your organisation has a specific development need, such as supporting graduates, front-line leaders or high-potential staff who may be at risk of leaving.

Informal networks can create strong interpersonal bonds, while formal programs can also produce meaningful mentoring relationships, but they require clear matching, mentor training and ongoing check-ins to be effective.