This year Mental Health Awareness week – 9th-15th May, is on the theme of Loneliness. According to Mark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation, “Loneliness is affecting more and more of us in the UK and has had a huge impact on our physical and mental health during the pandemic.” Loneliness is not a new phenomenon but with the pandemic and the rise of social media consumption our social interactions have become increasingly diluted over the last few years.
From a work perspective, remote and hybrid working has exasperated the issue and according to a recent Totaljobs survey over 68% of us feel lonely in our jobs. Although loneliness isn’t recognised as a mental health illness, it certainly contributes to our sense of mental wellbeing and can cause stress, low self-esteem, low productivity and low motivation levels. In fact, according to the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport the cost of workplace loneliness to employees is around £2.5 billion a year due to staff turnover, sickness and lack of productivity.
As Hybrid working continues at a pace in the UK, it is the perfect time to reflect on your business and team working practices and make some considered changes to ensure that loneliness is not the next pandemic to hit us off guard. These changes revolve around two key areas – the first one being connection and collaboration and the second ensuring that people are listened to and heard. There are lots of strategies you can implement as a manger that can mitigate against feelings of isolation and loneliness – none of the following suggestions are difficult yet all require commitment and intent if they are going to have impact.
Anchor days: Co-ordinating team or department days in the office (sometimes referred to as anchor days) is really helpful for a team development perspective. If this is something you are empowered to implement then do so – and make sure you mix up seating plans so people get to connect with different people regularly at their desks.
Shared lunch breaks: This might sound trite, but there is a lot of evidence to suggest that things as simple as sharing lunch breaks in the staff canteen makes a huge difference to team cohesiveness and feelings of connection. In these informal shared moments its often the time when people naturally open up and start to find connections with each other socially – going beyond surface pleasantries and sharing anecdotes and personal stories.
Design work for high levels of interaction: Sometimes it isn’t enough to simply ‘encourage’ your team to get involved and collaborate on initiatives and projects, you have to take a good look at the work you are doing and make structural changes to ensure that work is collaborative. We’ve got very used to passing the baton and working in an asynchronous way that has served us well when working remotely but purposefully making collaboration part of people’s jobs will ensure that connections are being made.
Have fun together: My 13 year old daughter was involved in a scavenger hunt this week at school. My initial fear that she would have thought it dull, uncool and boring was quickly put to rest as she retold enthused stories of her teammates – many of them kids in her year she hadn’t got to know – and how much fun working as a diverse team had been. The days of corporate and team raft building might be behind us but having fun together which has a focus i.e. bowling, wine tasting, pub quiz, go-cart racing is something to prioritise right now.
Sharing your own experiences and vulnerabilities: It’s not an easy topic to talk about if we are feeling lonely – with countless Instagram followers and Facebook friends how can we feel lonely? Sharing your own experiences, challenges and being seen as vulnerable yourself is so crucial in creating an environment where it’s OK to open up without a fear of judgement.
Create ‘rocks’ in your diary: The importance of being listened to and heard can’t be underestimated so regular one to one conversations with your team and making sure these are ‘rocks’ in your diary that aren’t moved, missed and cancelled is vital. We’ve talked at length about effective one to one chats and the behaviours you need to display such as active listening, empathetic language, good open questions etc. and these are skills that all managers need to have in spades to connect with their team.
Performance Management: The last idea might be the one you find hardest and less empowered to implement as it focuses on the importance of rewarding people for building connections and collaborating. Microsoft found that companies that provided incentives and rewards for internal relationship-building activities also had employees with higher levels of job satisfaction and happiness. This extrinsic reward helps to reinforce the legitimacy and business priority of collaborating for many.
Onboarding: When you have someone join your team who is new to the company and literally doesn’t know anyone, it is more important than ever to consider how you ensure individuals settle in and make connections quickly. Hybrid working doesn’t make onboarding easy as spending physical time with new starters has a huge benefit. It’s so important to put in place comprehensive induction programmes with a wide range of people and structure their networking opportunities and collaborative opportunities right from the start.
As with most things at work, we have to put some intent behind the things that matter and in 2022 preventing wide spread loneliness at work should be high on our agenda.