Help Your Employees Get a Life

But Susan Battley, founder and CEO of Battley Performance Consulting in Stony Brook, N.Y., thinks employers can play a big part in easing workers' sense of social isolation. "The Duke study does highlight the positive potential of community at work," she says. "If you don't have that, you're running the risk of losing your best people."

A 40- to 50-hour workweek is encouraged at First Research, a Raleigh, N.C., company that provides real-time market research for sales and marketing professionals. The 35-employee company also gathers workers and their families for dinner at local restaurants, and it has started an in-house volunteer program to get employees involved in the local community. "What we're trying to do is stop that social isolation that [is] created from a 70-hour workweek," says co-founder Bobby Martin, 37. "Relationships get built at companies, and that's something we advocate. But then again, we don't think [those are] the only relationships people should have."

It remains to be seen whether Americans will feel even more isolated over the next decade. But a few simple steps -- from allowing flextime to letting employees leave a little early for their child's soccer game -- can help people feel connected to others outside work. "That's critical social glue," Battley says.

And as George Bailey was reminded: "No man is a failure who has friends."