The Epidemic of Loneliness and Coaching as Leaders
June 6th, 2024
NOTICING AND WONDERING
I notice that there is a lot of attention being given to loneliness in the workplace as this is a pressing problem. Last week alone, I saw articles in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Morning Brew without even searching.
Since the rise of remote work following Covid, many people are physically isolated from their colleagues and often spend long hours at home with minimal contact with others.
About 15% of people do not leave their house on a typical day (Forbes, The Loneliness of the American Worker, 2024).
The days have become overly scheduled and stripped of relational touchpoints. This leaves people feeling lonely. In fact, in a recent study of 10,000 people, 58% of Americans reported feeling this way (Cigna). That means, people on your team feel this way right now.
This is terrible for both employee mental health and business outcomes like retention and engagement.
To operationalize what we are talking about:
Disconnection is the lack of interaction or meaningful relationships at work.
Loneliness is an emotional state that is often the result of disconnection.
Disengagement is the lack of enthusiasm or commitment to one’s work which is often a result of both disconnection and loneliness, and a precursor to an employee leaving - which is expensive.
Replacing an employee can cost up to 2x their annual salary. Cigna found that loneliness costs companies $154 billion a year in absenteeism alone.
Unfortunately, loneliness at work is now baked into the fabric of the modern workplace. We hear about it in Groop.
In a recent Groops For Leaders (our leadership training program), a leader of a remote team shared that he found himself logging on to work alongside some of his direct reports more often than he deemed necessary to help solve for this after members of his team reported feeling lonely. But, it was sucking his time and not solving the problem.
This left the leader feeling stuck and frustrated.
The leader was split between wanting to help as a caring person, needing to have an engaged team, and wondering if this is really his responsibility and even helpful. It was taking up time he did not have and adding pressure on him.
The Leadership Groop processed how to solve this on a practical level. Additional tech solutions were proposed (they already used a communication tool) - most of which were shot down as technology alone can worsen the problem.
Human problems are best solved by humans (and scaled by technology).
What was suggested is that the leader needed to put on his coaching hat (skills he was learning in Groop) to help the person increase self-awareness around what she meant by ‘lonely’ and empower her to draw on her own resources to meet some of these needs based on the environment she is in. Rather than taking the responsibility of keeping the employee company, he helped her ‘notice and name’ when she feels lonely, what signals are present before she feels that way, and what to do when it happens - like when to go for a walk or call a colleague.
Rather than solving her problem for her, he helped her solve her own problem. He coached her out of her loneliness.
Of course, this is not only the employee’s problem but it is multifold and requires a team and individual strategy.
The modern workplace requires new skills from leaders - coaching skills. That is when they provide guidance, support, and encouragement to their teams and embed these skills into their leadership style. It becomes part of management.
Great leaders have done this for years. Now, it is a requisite in modern leadership due to the changed landscape and different needs of employees, especially younger generations.
The workforce is pushing us to manage better. When we don’t, people leave.
So, it makes me wonder what the impact would be on the epidemic of loneliness if leaders:
Accepted that there are people on their team that are disconnected, lonely, and either currently or soon to be disengaged
Had the skills to coach as leaders around loneliness and disconnection at work
Building a coaching culture with leaders equipped to coach is an important tool to change how we work and feel.
A QUOTE TO THINK ABOUT
SOMETHING TO TRY
Take a coaching stance. As a team or in your 1:1’s, lead a discussion on disconnection and loneliness.
Say this: “I have been reading about disconnection and loneliness in the workplace and it got me curious about our team. Everyone feels lonely at times. How are you doing?
Make sure to ask open-ended questions to generate conversation (not “do you feel lonely or disconnected?”).
Then, when they respond, help them unpack:
When they notice it (look for patterns)
What the early signs are (to intervene early)
Problem solve ways to increase connection both when they feel lonely and also in general
People benefit from structuring their day to day with social interaction time, meaning working from a coffee shop, eating lunch out, or breaking up the day with a walk with a friend. Some of this is solved by increasing time with colleagues and some of this is solved by increasing social interaction with people outside of their direct colleagues.
The boundaries of work have changed and with that comes the opportunity to connect with “work friends” at local joints, like coworking spaces, who work alongside you but aren’t in fact at your organization. Both are important.
A DEEP-ish QUESTION (or Three)
ANNOUNCEMENT
Groops solves for disconnection, loneliness, and disengagement. That is what we do via Groops for Teams and Custom Groops. We also have two options to help leaders build coaching skills. We have Groops for Leaders, where leaders across one organization are cohorted into leadership growth groups and both learn coaching skills and practice implementing with the support of an expert in organizational psychology and their peers. And, we also have immersive coaching workshops (live or virtual), where we teach how to build a culture of coaching and the basics of coaching for leaders. Email for more information.
Keep on connecting. Cohesion is built one connection thread at a time.
Best,
Bobbi
Bobbi Wegner, Psy.D.
Founder and CEO of Groops: helping teams feel and function their best
Lecturer at Harvard University in Industrial-Organizational Psychology
If you are curious about a workplace dynamic or issue, send me an email at drbobbiwegner@joingroops.com and I will anonymously post it and respond. If you are thinking it, others are too. We can learn from each other. Also, if you are curious about the cohesion and health of your team, book a complimentary 30-minute consultation HERE with one of our Groop Guides.