7 Steps to Combat Workplace Loneliness – A Real Problem that Leaders Must Address

Workplace loneliness exists; it is a real problem that many organizations worldwide are struggling to deal with!

“Loneliness doesn’t come from having no one around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that are important to you.” Carl Jung

Everyone gets lonely

We all feel lonely from time to time. While many of us may like being alone and having some me time, no one likes being lonely. So why is being lonely different from being alone? When you are alone, you are in a state of solitude and often you choose this state. It could be to move away from people to simply take a break and enjoy the time by yourself.

Being lonely, which may or may not be triggered by being alone for too long, is being isolated or abandoned. Loneliness is that painful, crushing, devastating, and “feeling of not belonging” you get when your emotional and social needs are not met. It can have a very deep effect on your mental health and send you on a downward spiral of depression, anxiety, self-harm and even suicidal tendencies. It can push you to the darkest corners of your mind.

Loneliness @ Work

We can be lonely at home or away from home, among people, or even at work. Yes, at work! Although it is a place teeming with people and everyone’s mind is engaged in work, workplace loneliness is in fact a silent killer. Irrespective of whether you are working at an office or remotely or doing both, loneliness can affect employees just the same. Research suggests that one in five people feel lonely at work daily. That’s one fifth of the working population!

Adverse Impact of Workplace Loneliness

Since loneliness can have a highly damaging effect on people, it is important to understand how it affects the work environment.

1. Deteriorating mental and physical health: Loneliness at work has the same effects as loneliness in general. Absence of belongingness can trigger depression, anxiety, lack of self-worth in people. When employees feel unable to talk about their problems and feel misunderstood, they could bottle up too many negative emotions. This can lead people to addictions or unhealthy habits, which could affect their physical health as well.
2. Disengagement from colleagues and eventually work: When people feel isolated, they may gradually disengage themselves from their colleagues, avoid participating in “watercooler conversations” or office get-togethers. Over time they may stop being part of office meetings or team-building activities and even avoid making decisions.
3. Increase in employee turnover: As is obvious, the more the employees feel like they do not belong, they may no longer want to work in the organization. As their disengagement from work and colleagues increases and their productivity and performance levels drop, they feel they can no longer contribute to the company. This could lead them to quit.
4. Performance and productivity slump: When employees feel lonely, they do not feel emotionally connected to their work or people around them. This could be a demotivating factor. So, they may force themselves to work at a place they no longer want to work in and reach a breaking point, causing a slump in their performance and productivity.

What makes people lonely at the workplace?

1. Inability to talk about loneliness: Studies suggest that more than half the workers feel that no one gets enough time at the workplace to share problems. Some feel the work culture does not encourage discussing personal issues. It makes employees at such a place fear that sharing feelings about loneliness or any mental health issue with colleagues will have negative consequences.
2. Isolation by peers and leaders: Sometimes employees can have peers and bosses who are neither friendly nor collaborative. They are difficult people to work with. A team leader might only assign projects to sycophants and leave out the ones who does not pander to the boss. This could make an employee feel isolated and not included by the manager. 
3. Remote/hybrid work: Work-from-home comes with a lot of benefits, but one side effect is often loneliness. This can lead people to stop engaging with colleagues altogether. Staying at home all day for several hours and having no social contact can affect people’s ability to interact using devices alone. Taking fewer or even no breaks when working remotely can set people up for loneliness. Sometimes working remotely with teams in different time zones and cultures or with teams and bosses who have their own “groupies” can make a person feel very isolated and lonely at work.
4. Discrimination: Discrimination at the workplace can make people feel lonely. Although all organizations these days have rules on paper to prevent discrimination, the ground reality may be different. Subtle gender, race, sexuality-related discrimination exists in many workplaces. This can make people feel like they do not belong or feel like an outcast in the workplace.

7 Effective Steps to Conquer Workplace Loneliness

1. Enable conversations: Everyone has the capability to bring about a change. One does not have to be a manager, boss, or leader to do that. You can create/influence the culture at work. i.e., start to talk about some issues or problems with confidence and without feeling embarrassed. You might be amazed how many others open up, too – maybe not right away, but soon after.
2. Team-building activities: Getting the team together to discover more about each other can go a long way in getting the communication going. This is an effective way of re-engaging disengaged workers and making people feel less isolated. JWLCC offers effective team-building programs you may want to check out.
3. Checking discrimination: It is important for organizations to keep their workplaces discrimination free. Encouraging people to talk about their negative experiences regarding discrimination can have an equalizing effect in the workplace.
4. Providing work-from-home/hybrid options: While this may cause loneliness for some, for many this might be a boon. If the workplace has become stifling for an employee, giving that person the flexibility to work from home or in a hybrid setting can help re-engage the employee.
5. Keep internal communication active: People communicate over the internet these days. So, keep the chat groups, virtual water coolers, town halls, virtual parties active and thriving. This can help everyone, including introverts who would hesitate to have a face-to-face conversation, communicate freely, and interact more often.
6. Regular one-on-one meetings: This can be a very efficient method to get a comprehensive picture of how each team member is doing. Team members usually feel safe to express their deepest emotions, challenges, and ideas during these discussions without fear of being criticized. These meetings are great opportunities for the leader to coach the team members.
7. Build a system of periodic activity oriented team meetings: involve every team member, if possible, synchronously. Spend 30 minutes together, do 15-20 minute exercises together (cameras on for remote teams). This boosts the team spirit, creates fun and builds strong connections within the team, and creates some movement, which boosts the physical and, in turn mental health. 

Creating invigorating work spaces

The reason why so many people feel lonely at work is because often the fault lies somewhere within the organization itself. When corporations do not take timely action to check workplace groupism, discrimination, toxicity, and intentionally or unintentionally create and nurture an oppressive and stifling work environment, workers feel isolated, lonely, and eventually disengage and quit.

Corporates must create a safe enough work environment that enables team members to share their problems openly and expect positive rather than negative consequences. When leaders are not trained properly to manage and lead people in co-located, remote and hybrid workspaces, employees are likely to feel dissatisfied and disconnected. Corporations often do not train managers and leaders enough to be able to lead remotely based teams effectively. Corporate training’s designed to change the fixed mindsets of leaders to help them become more effective and empathetic can go a long way in creating productive and conducive workspaces. JWLCC has several leadership programs for corporations offered both in-person and through online modes that provide solutions for these organizational issues. There is also a prerecorded leadership program available.

Be it in our personal or professional lives, we want to be our authentic, imperfect, real selves. We can be ourselves only if we feel we belong, not if we feel lonely. Workplaces should strive to make employees feel like they belong. Only then can they become the best of who they are and realize their full potential.