Why workers feel lonely and how to address the problem

Here's a puzzle: Working from home appears to make people feel more alone, but forcing them back to the office full-time won't necessarily make them feel better, according to new research published in the Harvard Business Review.

Why it matters: Loneliness is a huge societal issue with often devastating health and cultural fallout, as the U.S. Surgeon General has warned — and in the workplace it can be particularly damaging.

• Lonely workers are less productive, rack up higher health care costs, and are more likely to quit their jobs, says Constance Noonan Hadley, a professor at Boston University's Questrom School of Business, who co-authored the study.

Zoom in: Lonely workers want to feel closer or more connected to colleagues. The researchers defined work loneliness as "the distressful experience of having a higher desire for social connection than what is subjectively experienced while working."

• They surveyed 1,000 full-time office workers, aged 22-50, working in "knowledge" fields like finance, software engineering and consulting.
• After taking an assessment (you can take it here), respondents were divided by levels of loneliness: high, medium, low. A smaller group was then asked more qualitative questions.

What they found: Surprisingly, the loneliest workers are getting a lot of face-to-face contact, but it doesn't seem to help: 47% of the most lonely respondents said they conducted nearly half of their prior month's work in person.

• There was no difference in loneliness between those in-office full-time and those working a hybrid schedule. While fully remote workers, on average, were slightly more lonely — other factors were more impactful.

State of play: What matters the most, per their research, is the number of social opportunities workers have. The second most important factor is people's level of extroversion (with introverts feeling more alone).

• People of color were also more likely to feel lonely — that tracks with other research showing Black and Hispanic workers feel more isolated in the workplace.
• On the other hand, employees who are also caregivers were less likely to report loneliness. (Perhaps for some parents the alone time at work is a blessing.)

Yes, but: Clearly, working on your own at home is a more lonely experience than being in an office.

• 25% of fully remote U.S. workers reported feeling lonely in a Gallup survey earlier this year. The number was 16% for folks who never worked from home.

The bottom line: It's too simplistic to say that remote work is the cause of worker loneliness or that sending workers back to the office five days a week will fix the problem, says Hadley.

• "We're over-indexing on remote work as the culprit," she says.

What employers can do

There's a lot that employers can do to make workers feel less alone, says Hadley, who also founded the Institute for Life at Work. Some of her tips:

1. Measure the problem: It's hard to fix an issue if you don't know how widespread it is. Employers can survey workers to get a feel (keep it anonymous).

2. Allow for work-life balance: Folks can't connect if they're overworked. In Hadley's study, several lonely workers said they were too busy for social interaction. "You cannot keep people working at 110% capacity and also ask them to take a moment to get to know their coworkers," she says.

3. Facilitate socializing: It doesn't have to be anything crazy or cringe. Lunches, chitchats and some happy hours are among the activities that get you the "most bang for your buck."