How HR Leaders Can Tackle Loneliness at Work in the Hybrid Era
In today’s hybrid work era, more employees are feeling lonely, leading to several problems on a personal and professional level. Here, Jamie Styles, director of people & culture, Koa Health, shares how HR leaders can help to tackle loneliness and its impact on our wellbeing.
While flexible working brings many benefits, there is one indisputable impact; more people feel lonely at work than ever before. The feeling of isolation at home, lack of genuine connection to other team members, lack of belonging within the company culture, or even lack of visibility and recognition might contribute to a sensation of loneliness at work.
According to a Totaljobs study, 60% of employees report feeling lonely in their professional life, with continued working from home and irregular office patterns exacerbating the problem. What’s more, the demographics of those suffering are changing. Where we perhaps once associated loneliness with the elderly or those that suffered bereavement, young people are reporting increasing feelings of loneliness. According to The Prince’s Trust NatWest Youth Index, 33% of 16-25-year-olds feel they do not know how to make new friends, and 35% said they have never felt more alone. So widespread is the issue that psychiatrists have now warned that loneliness is a ‘bigger health risk than smoking or obesity.’
Loneliness does not just affect our mental health but the bottom line for businesses too. According to the U.K. government, the cost of loneliness to employers is estimated to be £2.5 billion annually. This encompasses increased staff turnover, lower well-being, and productivity, the impact of caring responsibilities, ill health, and associated sickness absence.
For the sake of individuals and businesses, loneliness must be addressed. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. Return-to-office mandates are often more focused on the company than individual employees and serve as a plaster to a systemic, longer-term issue. Furthermore, according to Envoy, 57% of U.K. workers would choose a hybrid work model, demonstrating the clear appeal of flexible working. Flexible working is not a one size fits all solution, though. Businesses must move to a model where flexibility is integrated into business planning but reflects where people are at in their life stages.
Employers, therefore, must take a more compassionate and empathetic approach to tackle loneliness. Like many other aspects of our physical, mental, and emotional health, loneliness carries a stigma. Employees are unlikely to be forthcoming and may not wish to express it to their employer. A creative, sensitive approach must be adopted. Here is how HR leaders can help tackle loneliness in the hybrid era:
Create an Open Culture That Has Time and Space for People
This starts from the top. If people feel comfortable enough to share their mental health concerns with their employers, then HR leaders can implement change that has an impact. The leadership skills needed to handle these conversations are similar to those required to build an inclusive culture, creating a safe space for conversation, empathy, and diplomacy.
Managers must not only be trained in how to handle difficult and emotional conversations but also how to play an active role in improving company culture. Equally, they must encourage employees to build routines that work for them, complete with time for connecting with others to prevent them from overworking and reduce feelings of isolation.
To help mitigate feelings of loneliness, HR managers must ensure everyone has the time in their workday to socialize. When all interactions between an employee and an employer are transactional, the relationship between them becomes transactional; there is no sense of loyalty or commandeer that encourages employee engagement or retention, and the opportunity for isolation creeps in. Encouraging people to make full use of their breaks and ensuring that they are not continuing to work once the workday ends can help to bookend time for catching up with colleagues. If people are working from the office, put a regular slot aside each week for people to unwind together.
For those that are shy and do not enjoy socializing in groups, consider implementing a mentorship program that encourages weekly face-to-face contact or creating smaller interest groups for people to come together/share with one another. This can be anything from an after-work running group to a book club.
It is vital to remember virtual employees, too. With many still working from home for most of their working week, HR can harness technology to encourage video conferences and telephone calls wherever possible. This helps virtual employees keep work networks strong and prevent misunderstandings that can happen via instant messaging and email. Strive to ensure that time is saved at the end of each conference call for informal and open conversations, and ensure communication channels (such as Slack or Teams) are open for them to connect with the rest of their colleagues.
See More: 2 Ways AI is Transforming Wellness in the Workplace
Use Technology To Increase Direct Mental Health Support
While a company’s culture plays a key role in addressing many mental health issues, businesses also have a responsibility to support this culture by providing direct mental health support to those suffering. These solutions must be comprehensive and accessible to employees, as well as personalized to each individual’s unique circumstances and background.
With mental health waiting lists growing, employees can often struggle to get the support they need when they need it from trained professionals. Digital therapeutics, such as mental health apps, are delivered at a distance and have proved to be one of the only practical solutions capable of scaling quickly enough to meet growing demand. These digital tools are needed now more than ever to form part of integrated care plans, complementing traditional practices such as counseling.
But the marketplace for these tools is crowded. With over 325,000 health apps on the market, employers must be mindful of which solution they elect to offer. At present, just 3% of digital mental health solutions on the market have an evidence base to back them up, and 85% of apps fall short of the criteria set by ORCHA, independent and impartial reviewers of health care apps, for data privacy, clinical assurance, and user experience.
Businesses have a duty to protect sensitive employee data and must only partner with digital mental healthcare providers that follow encryption standards and only share the minimum amount of data possible on internal networks. All personal identifiers should be removed from the data, and any data to be shared back with employers must be anonymized and aggregated to minimize the risk of re-identification. Lastly, HR leaders must ensure that providers adhere to ISO 27001 certified systems to protect all sensitive information, including registration emails and passwords.
After two years of lockdowns and isolation, it is little wonder that loneliness is becoming a growing concern. Business leaders must implement a wide range of initiatives to tackle not only the spread of loneliness but also its long-lasting impacts. Both individuals’ and businesses’ mental well-being depends on it.
What steps have you taken to tackle loneliness at work in the hybrid work enviornment? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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