Loneliness, connection and remote work

Over the last few years, we've seen a huge increase in the prevalence of remote work. This has 'blurred the boundaries between home and work life' for many employees, such that 'struggles now seamlessly drift between the two domains, with loneliness and its associated negative outcomes being far from the exception' (Beutel et al., 2017; Ozcelik & Barsade, 2018; Lowman, 2021).

At Positive, our research supports this idea that feelings of loneliness are widespread. Data collected from a Professional Services firm found that 13% of the workforce reported feeling lonely or disconnected 'most days' or 'nearly every day' (Nov 21, n=110). Of this 13%, the greatest percentages were found in the mid- and late-career categories – a total of 10% combined!

This is significant, because loneliness can have a profound knock-on effect on numerous other factors including wellbeing and performance. For leaders, understanding how loneliness may be affecting your people and how you can combat the risks is therefore key.

It is normal to experience loneliness from time to time. Often, feelings will resolve by themselves fairly quickly; however, sometimes they will persist, and it is in these cases where additional problems relating to psychological health (van Winkel et al., 2017) and physical health (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015; Valtorta et al., 2016) may become apparent.

At Positive, we continually see that social connection is a key factor to buffer against other negative experiences that have been associated with loneliness. These include reduced psychological wellbeing (Singh & Kiran, 2013) and reduced productivity, such as poor problem-solving skills (Daniel, 2013).

Recent Positive data found that:

• If high psychological safety is reported among teams (feelings of support and the belief that you won't be humiliated for speaking up with ideas, concerns, questions, or for making mistakes), this acts as a protective barrier against feelings of loneliness:

• There is an 18% decrease in loneliness if team psychological safety is reported as high. This protective mechanism is displayed across the workforce, but is particularly significant among early and mid-career groups:

The above data highlights the need for psychological safety within teams, but our research also supports the idea that leaders have considerable influence over this sense of psychological safety; when the workforce perceive leadership as being positive role-models for psychological health and wellbeing, the sense of psychological safety within teams increases by almost 25%!

• One of the greatest challenges relating to loneliness in the ‘new world’ is the balance of remote vs. office working. Never underestimate the impact leaders can have on psychological safety and social connection throughout the workforce. Utilise leadership check-ins wherever possible, as they are a powerful driver for positive psychological wellbeing among teams, especially in the new hybrid working world.
• Keeping connected to our team members, friends and family members is crucial to our feeling of belonging, which ultimately allows us to thrive at work as well as in our personal lives. Making ‘water-cooler’ time in the working week to check in with your team members could have a huge impact on someone who has been struggling, as well as enhance your own feelings of belonging.
• On an individual level, checking in with your own emotions can help you to manage your mood on a daily basis, and in turn protect against loneliness. There is good evidence that talking therapies and therapeutic approaches like CBT can effectively tackle some of the negative thoughts, assumptions and expectations about social situations, which can become self-fulfilling prophecies and keep us feeling ‘stuck’ in loneliness. An easy way to take the first step to reducing loneliness is to consider the things that affect your mood, and think about how you can proactively pepper ‘mood boosters’ into your day.