Dr. Gleb Tsipursky – The Office Whisperer
Nirit Cohen – WorkFutures
Angela Howard – Culture Expert
Drew Jones – Design & Innovation
Jonathan Price – CRE & Flex Expert
Glenn Medeiros first sang about loneliness not leaving people alone back in the eighties. Since then, loneliness has been declared an epidemic. Two years ago, the former U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, declared loneliness a major health risk for both individuals and society.
And last year, researchers found that technology was the foremost contributor to people’s feelings of loneliness (73%). Close to two-thirds also said their sense of loneliness came from being overworked or too busy or tired (62%).
As of this writing, AI bots claim to help soothe loneliness, but there has to be a better way to foster connection.
Hybrid and remote work settings, and even some in-person situations in which technology subsumes communication, have resulted in workers’ sense of isolation and disconnection.
Minimal interaction from managers and coworkers can be detrimental — negatively affecting performance, morale, and a business’s bottom line. Recent research underscores that workplace loneliness has profound detrimental effects on the overall economy.
As human beings, we’re wired to need each other. But now that we mostly communicate online to do our work, we stifle any interactions that give us a sense of belonging to our workmates.
Operating in a social vacuum day after day without any face-to-face conversations — even if it involves only chitchat — contributes to our feelings of social isolation. Even those who are introverts want to feel a sense of belonging that comes from knowing about their team members beyond impersonal online Teams meetings.
Four Ways to Combat Workplace Loneliness and Build Real Connection
If you struggle with a sense of loneliness, or if you recognize that your team acts as merely a collection of disparate individuals rather than a cohesive and bonded crew, here are some ways to ward off the loneliness epidemic at work:
1. Opt for in-person meetings
A relentless series of online sessions with team members only involving updates and next assignments is sure to leave everyone feeling disconnected and dissatisfied. Advocate for replacing some of these detached discussions with occasional in-person meetings.
You may even seek out spaces beyond the office conference room, such as a coffee shop, to meet to entice everyone to show up. Make it a standing day and time each month so that remote workers can plan to attend.
2. Create opportunities for deeper relationships
This will likely take the form of stepping outside of your working roles to get to know the people behind the job titles. For example, take a few minutes at the beginning of each meeting to “check in” and share how things are going generally in each of your lives.
It doesn’t mean getting overly personal — just sharing your overall sense of well-being in the moment and, if it feels comfortable, providing some context. If you just dropped your toddler off for his first day of preschool, the emotions involved are bound to color how well you engage in your work that day. Letting your team know this detail is helpful and makes you more human.
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3. Celebrate milestones in person
Make any successful completion of a project or achievement of a goal a cause for celebration. It could be just going out for lunch and paying your own way, marking the milestone as a team. Try to include everyone involved — even the intern who may have moved on — so that each person feels a sense of accomplishment through contributing to the project.
Even mini-celebrations with a cake at the office help build that important sense of camaraderie.
4. Show you care
Let each coworker know you appreciate her as a person. Learn the birthdays of each team member and circulate a card that everyone signs. When a team member calls in sick for consecutive days, reach out to see how he’s doing and if you can absorb some of his workload. If you learn that someone on the team has lost a family member, send flowers.
In other words, show you care about what’s going on with them — just as you would for a friend. Gestures like these let coworkers know they matter to the team beyond their work functions alone.
Keeping loneliness at bay in one’s professional life takes effort, but makes for a more meaningful experience all around.
It’s not always possible to know if others in your workplace are suffering from loneliness, but when you model how to show care and compassion, and work to establish ways to reach out beyond professional roles, you will help keep the epidemic of loneliness from taking hold.
