Translating Decency Into Practice: Tackling Work Loneliness

By Professor Sarah Wright, Professor in organisational behaviour at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and Dr Connie Hadley, founder of the Institute for Life at Work.

Tackling Work Loneliness

When Olivia joined the firm, it promised a vibrant and social culture. She liked the open-plan office and the stream of meetings, but over time, she started to feel invisible. One afternoon after yet another rushed stand-up and with more work piled on, she confided to a co-worker, “Sometimes it feels like I’m working alone in a bubble.” Her experience reflects a broader problem: work can be surprisingly lonely.

Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workplace report found that one in five employees worldwide feel lonely during the workday, suggesting that Olivia’s feelings are more widespread than we might realise.

What contributes to feeling isolated at work

Several factors fuel work loneliness:

1. Job design and workloads. When people’s diaries are packed and teams are understaffed, there’s no slack to chat, get to know one another or build trust. Remote work isn’t the culprit either; what matters more are the surrounding conditions that allow people to connect in ways that meet their needs. High-demand jobs with long hours or relentless workloads can also block opportunities to build or maintain relationships.
2. Culture and leadership. Participants in one study described being lonely in one organisation and connected in another. Cultures that reward hyper-competition and divisiveness can create loneliness, whereas climates that emphasise cooperation and inclusion help people feel they belong. Leaders play an important role: Only 18 % of very lonely employees say their manager supports their connections with colleagues, compared with 77 % of their non-lonely peers. Feeling that your manager and teammates “have your back” matters when it comes to preventing loneliness.
3. Individual differences. Research suggests loneliness peaks among workers under 30, who often report feeling unheard and unseen. Older workers, by contrast, experience lower levels of loneliness. While stable traits like introversion show surprisingly little effect, psycho-social factors such as resilience, self-compassion, and support outside of work can buffer against loneliness.

Ways to build connection

The evidence suggests that tackling loneliness requires interventions at the team, leader, and organisational levels:

1. Design work for connection. Give people more autonomy in work arrangements, create inclusive meetings, and build in time for informal exchanges. Leaders can incorporate a few minutes of personal chat into meetings, encourage micro-breaks and avoid over-scheduling. When there’s constant pressure to be productive, people can’t invest in conversations that build trust and knowledge transfer.

2. Keep social activities simple. Employees of all ages and personality types tend to appreciate free communal lunches, short meetings with time for chitchat and low-key gatherings sponsored by the organisation.
3. Support remote and hybrid workers. Connection isn’t tied to a physical office. Virtual check-ins that include personal sharing, buddy or mentoring schemes, chat channels for non-work topics, or shared coffee breaks can create a sense of belonging. Occasional in-person meet-ups for remote staff help cement bonds.
4. Build an inclusive culture.Small acts of kindness, such as recognising birthdays or checking in after difficult events, send relational signals. When leaders model empathy and encourage colleagues to look out for one another, workers then feel that someone “has their back”.

5. Don’t wait for people to opt-in. Lonely colleagues may hesitate to join social activities. Friendly, easy-to-accept invitations and structured programmes can help them feel welcome. Ensure activities are optional but inclusive, and ask quieter colleagues for their input.

Work loneliness is not a weakness. It is a signal that social needs at work are unmet. By treating it as an organisational issue rather than an individual flaw, leaders can design environments where people feel connected and valued. Simple, consistent practices can make a profound difference in reducing loneliness.

Biographies

Sarah Wright

Professor Sarah Wright

Sarah Wright is a Professor in organisational behaviour at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Her research interests include social connection and disconnection in organisations, with a particular focus on loneliness.

Biography

Dr Connie Hadley

Dr Connie Hadley

Dr. Constance (Connie) Noonan Hadley is an organizational psychologist. She is the founder of the Institute for Life at Work and a research associate professor at the Boston University Questrom School of Business. Her focal areas include work relationships and loneliness, psychological safety, trust, burnout, team effectiveness, and the future of work.