The Importance of Addressing Workplace Loneliness, Spring 2023

A national campaign provides insight into workplace loneliness and offers some possible solutions to tackle it.

Employees can feel lonely at work for many different reasons.

They may have had a change in their personal situation which has affected their outlook on their life; or it could be the corporate culture that they work in which discourages close relationships.

There may be a general lack of inclusion for one reason or another, and as a result the employee may feel isolated from colleagues; or it could be the job role itself, requiring more independent working and less time working with others.

Employees can also feel lonely at work because of existing feelings of loneliness: This can cause things like emotional withdrawal and can make them seen as less approachable by their colleagues.

It can also be suggested that loneliness at work could be due to the rise of social distancing and remote working which was prompted by COVID-19.

Whilst this setting may have made it more of a challenge for some employees to form strong bonds (possibly leading to workplace isolation) it should be recognised that high rates of loneliness in employees actually pre-dates the pandemic.

To improve how businesses can connect and serve their communities and customers, tackling workplace loneliness should be a priority.

So, what can be done to tackle workplace loneliness?

Recent work from Campaign to End Loneliness offers more insight to this subject and have released a feature which provides some possible solutions to help reduce workplace loneliness.

To read the feature, visit the Campaign’s website.