The Link Between Loneliness and the Workplace
The environment where we spend the majority of our time matters
Articles about the current loneliness epidemic are posted to our feeds almost daily. Sadly, we are all to familiar with staggering studies like the one done by Cigna that found 46 percent of Americans sometimes or always feel alone, while 1 in 4 Americans rarely or never feel as though there are people who really understand them. It is hard to believe that loneliness is worse for a person’s health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and many still lack practical solutions to improve.
In order to get a closer look at the loneliness epidemic, we started paying attention to the place where we spend the majority of our time: the workplace. As adults, we spend most of our waking hours at work or working, so if there is a rise in loneliness, it might just be linked to the ways that work environments have changed over the past few years. In fact, nearly half of Americans lack meaningful interactions during the day — this could mean that half of your coworkers do not have an extended social interaction with another person in any given day.
A publication on Work Loneliness and Employee Performance defined loneliness as an emotional condition where a person feels deprived of secure relationships in his/her social environment, and found that this emotion is particularly relevant to work. While this link between loneliness and work seems obvious, it is a relatively new area for research.
A study by Wharton School of Business addressed the link between loneliness and work when they found that management “should consider it as an organizational problem that needs to be addressed both for the employees’ sake and that of the organization,” and we could not agree more. This July, new research revealed that 38 percent of lonely workers reported making more mistakes and 40 percent felt less productive. This means that organizations suffer when employees are lonely.
The last number of years have brought about a number of significant changes in how we work, where we work, and when we work. Flexible, remote hours have allowed people the opportunity to work efficiently from home, a coffee shop, or wherever it is in the world that they happen to be that day. Of course the opportunity to work remote or on a flexible schedule could never have come about without the development of powerful technology that allows people to stay easily connected. Yet, connectivity and efficiency cannot make up for what is lost through face-to-face human interaction.
People find themselves starved for the opportunity to touch base with people regularly throughout the week, and it can turn the gifts of technology a little sour. Still, the underlying issue is not technology or the ability to work remotely — both of these developments can, in the right circumstances, greatly boost productivity and efficiency. The issue, at its core, is actually a cultural one.
Technology and flexibility cannot create culture, only people can.
When connectivity is confused for relationship, loneliness can result. Emailing, texting, and various forms of coworking communication platforms online provide constant connectivity for people who are working remote or who work different hours than their colleagues. Alternately, freelancers are also connecting with clients or networking with people in their field incessantly, but may feel lonely. Even people working in bustling offices can feel extremely isolated. Connection is an efficient way to do business, but it breaks down when people find themselves alienated from their greater community, and productivity ends up plummeting. Constant connectivity does not craft culture. Connection is not relationship; culture fosters relationship.
Culture is what helps us feel like we are part of a whole. It is the shared norms, goals, and values that make up an organization’s vibe. This is the component that can so easily get lost in the world of technology-heavy work habits, making it difficult for relationships to form and develop.
Being part of a flex space can restore the joy of being in a working community for those who work flexible hours or do not have a traditional office space. Just because we can work remotely, and may enjoy the remote work life, does not mean working remotely all of the time is good for ourselves, others, or maximizing impact. Having a physical space where people can have regular interactions is incredibly valuable. Additionally, actually using the space that is there for purposeful relational building is critical to putting people front and center.
We at Link2Lift have built shared spaces, and we have seen workplace culture flourish. As the Harvard Business Review wrote, “while the solution to the loneliness epidemic is multifaceted, encouraging people to build meaningful, mutually beneficial connections is a step in the right direction.” What better way to implement this step than in the workplace, where people spend the majority of their time and are surrounded by people who could form mutually beneficial relationships? This is part of the reason why shared space solutions are so effective.
Efficiency and relationships are complementary components to productivity and wellbeing. The efficiency we gain through technology is actually boosted by mutually beneficial relationships that combat loneliness and lead to greater fulfillment at work, maximize impact, and connect us to a grounding physical space. Link2Lift engages with people to transform space and culture for the common good — and we believe that loneliness really can be overcome at work through shared space solutions.
