Why workers feel lonely no matter where they work

Here's a puzzle: Working from home appears to make people feel more alone, but forcing them back to the office full-time won't necessarily make them feel better, according to new research published in the Harvard Business Review. 

Why it matters: Loneliness is a huge societal issue with often devastating health and cultural fallout, as the U.S. Surgeon General has warned — and in the workplace it can be particularly damaging.

Lonely workers are less productive, rack up higher health care costs, and are more likely to quit their jobs, says Constance Noonan Hadley, a professor at Boston University's Questrom School of Business, who co-authored the study.

Zoom in: Lonely workers want to feel closer or more connected to colleagues. The researchers defined work loneliness as "the distressful experience of having a higher desire for social connection than what is subjectively experienced while working."

They surveyed 1,000 full-time office workers, aged 22-50, working in "knowledge" fields like finance, software engineering and consulting.

After taking an assessment, respondents were divided by levels of loneliness: high, medium, low. A smaller group was then asked more qualitative questions.

What they found: Surprisingly, the loneliest workers are getting a lot of face-to-face contact, but it doesn't seem to help: 47% of the most lonely respondents said they conducted nearly half of their prior month's work in person.

There was no difference in loneliness between those in-office full-time and those working a hybrid schedule. While fully remote workers, on average, were slightly more lonely — other factors were more impactful.

State of play: What matters the most, per their research, is the number of social opportunities workers have. The second most important factor is people's level of extroversion (with introverts feeling more alone.)

People of color were also  more likely to feel lonely— that tracks with other research showing Black and Hispanic workers feel more isolated in the workplace.

On the other hand, employees who are also caregivers were less likely to report loneliness. (Perhaps for some parents the alone time at work is a blessing.)

Yes, but: Clearly, working on your own at home is more lonely experience than being in an office.

25% of fully remote U.S workers reported feeling lonely in Gallup survey earlier this year. The number was 16% for folks who never worked from home.

The bottom line: It's too simplistic to say that remote work is the cause of worker loneliness or that sending workers back to the office five days a week will fix the problem, says Hadley.

"We're over-indexing on remote work as the culprit," she says.

There's a lot that employers can do to make workers feel less alone, says Hadley, who also founded the Institute for Life at Work. Some of her tips:

1. Measure the problem: It's hard to fix an issue if you don't know how to widespread it is. Employers can survey workers to get a feel (keep it anonymous).

2. Allow for work-life balance: Folks can't connect if they're overworked. In Hadley's study, several lonely workers said they were too busy for social interaction. "You cannot keep people working at 110% capacity and also ask them to take a moment to get to know their coworkers," she says.

3. Facilitate socializing: It doesn't have to be anything crazy or cringe. Lunches, chitchats and some happy hours are among the activities that get you the "most bang for your buck."

Source: https://www.axios.com/2024/10/21/loneliness-work-from-home-remote

1. Devastating health and cultural fallout: mental health crises, loss of cultural practices, traditions, and social cohesion. Together, these impacts can significantly disrupt the well-being and identity of affected populations.

2. Rack up something: (phrasal verb) to increase something such as a rent or price, especially by an amount that is considered to be too much. Example: Our landlord racked up the rent by 15 percent this year.

3. Culprit: the reason for a particular problem or difficulty. Example: High production costs are the main culprit.

4. Cringe: to feel embarrassed by something you have said or done because you think it makes you seem silly Example: It makes me cringe when I think how stupid I was.