Over the past decade, there has been a significant rise in loneliness in the workplace. An an astonishing 42% of people saying they do not have a close friend in the workplace (Relate, 2014) It almost seems ironic; how can you feel so alone in a workplace full of people? The 21st century has seen an incredible change in technology, and a general rise in digital media. The more connected we are becoming digitally, the further away we seem to be from each other emotionally and physically. We live in an era whereby we send emails/instant messages, as opposed to talking to people face to face. This most probably holds the largest reason as to why workplace loneliness is on the rise.
Emails are replacing the conversations we would have in person, and they tend to have less small talk in. Small talk filters conversations in person and allows people to get to know each other more, e.g. what did you get up to at the weekend? In business these days, we have new communication programmes like Slack and Trello. These provide that virtual teamwork space, saving the yourself the ’hassle’ of having to speak to people in person.
Impact of Loneliness
There are many overall effects of loneliness. Like the image below shows, loneliness can impact your stress levels, self-esteem, relationships, and even your productivity at work. All these factors if affected, can have an ongoing prolonged effect on your mental health. Loneliness frequently co-occurs with depression, anxiety and self-harm, with lonely individuals more likely to seek help from healthcare services for mental health problems compared to non-lonely individuals (Matthews, 2018). It is estimated that an astonishing 9 million British people suffer from loneliness. It is also said that feeling lonely is the equivalent of smoking more than 15 cigarettes a day. According to an article by Vercida, employees are 12% more productive when they are happy.
Preventing workplace loneliness can overall have a positive effect on the overall ethos of the workplace. On top of this, loneliness contributes to absenteeism. People who have felt lonely have taken an average of 5 days off work over the working year. More dramatically research found that around 26% of employees had to quit their job – see here for more detail. Combating loneliness will contribute to the success of a business, reduction of costs and absenteeism, but more importantly, will stop employees from suffering.
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Admission of loneliness is contagious. When someone talks about feeling lonely, 52% of his/her friends are more likely to admit they feel the same. People often feel uncomfortable from speaking about personal feelings, in fear of standing alone in their emotion. However, this promising figure proves the importance and power of talking to people about your issues.
Social interaction in general is the best thing to partake in when feeling lonely. Although this is often hard for people who feel lonely, as they also feel excluded from the group. Therefore, there is an ongoing argument regarding whether or not businesses have the responsibility to look after their employees.
