Linking loneliness and burnout

Pre-pandemic employees could spend up to forty hours a week together. This of course changed dramatically and many people have benefited from the increased flexibility and autonomy brought by home and hybrid working. However, it has also created a wellbeing issue where reduced social interaction has led to a lack of connection and feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Now, studies have shown that feelings of loneliness can contribute to and exacerbate burnout with research from the American Psychological Association showing a strong link between the social support we get at work and lower rates of burnout.

There are a number of ways loneliness can increase the risk of burnout. These include:

- Emotional Exhaustion: Loneliness can lead to feelings of emotional isolation and disconnection which can result in feelings of emptiness and a heightened sense of stress. Social interactions provide emotional replenishment and without this employees can become emotionally exhausted.

- Increased Perception of Stress: Without a support system employees may feel they have to handle their challenges alone, increasing the perceived burden of stress and making negative experiences feel more intense as there are no social buffers to mitigate these feelings.

- Reduced Resilience: Social connections provide strategies and advice for coping with stress and without access to these resources employees are less resilient in the face of challenges. Loneliness can also increase vulnerability to stress, as social interactions can serve as a protective barrier against it.

- Mental Health Decline: Loneliness is linked to higher rates of anxiety and depression which can drain energy and focus and lead to negative self-perception and low self-esteem, undermining confidence and motivation.

- Reduced Job Satisfaction and Engagement: Loneliness can lead to disengagement which reduces motivation and satisfaction. Without social interactions that provide recognition and validation employees may feel unappreciated and undervalued, leading to decreased job satisfaction.

- Physical Health Deterioration: Loneliness can contribute to chronic stress which has negative effects on physical health, leading to increased absenteeism and reduced productivity.

- Lack of Social Support at Work: If a team lacks support and camaraderie employees may feel isolated. A lack of mentorship and guidance can leave employees feeling unsupported, making it harder to navigate work-related challenges.

A strong social network can help employees connect more easily with colleagues and benefit from their support and advice as well as from feelings of camaraderie and companionship. The creation of a supportive and inclusive work environment where social interactions are encouraged and mental health resources provided can help mitigate feelings of loneliness and drive the overall well-being and success of employees.

Executive loneliness. Overcoming isolation in the business world.

Nick Jonsson was born in Sweden but he left in the 1990’s because he wanted to learn English. He moved to Australia where he played golf professionally for a few years before moving to South East Asia where he has lived and worked since 2004.  Mainly working in Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, Nick took on a number of MD roles leading large international companies.  After a while Nick realised he was quite lonely and he can now see he was isolated perhaps because he had ‘elbowed’ his way to the top, something many executives do. He changed his life, leaving the corporate world five years ago and now knows many other senior executives find themselves in an isolation trap.

Nick tried to balance the stresses of his working life by playing hard. Initially he did this through exercise but life had its ups and down and he was divorced in 2015.  This left him feeling even more isolated both at work and at home so it was natural that he wanted to go out and meet people. It was a lot easier to go to the bar instead of going to the gym and having a couple of drinks was OK in the short term but it became a bad habit. He stopped his gym membership and became a regular at the bar, which in turn became a downward spiral. He realised a change was needed but this was very slow. At the time his friends were happy to see he was out and about, it was good to see him enjoying himself, they were worried about him just exercising and being on his own. It felt natural and he didn’t realise it before it was too late. He put on a lot of weight, his health deteriorated, he had hypertension and high blood pressure. He was only 42 years old and was in poor health.

Then with the added stress of work it got to the point where he couldn't stop the drinking. He realised he was addicted. It had been secret and silent for a long time and he didn't want to admit he had an addiction and issues. He was at rock bottom but had to admit it to himself and to other people to get out of it. People had thought he was coping and didn't have a problem with drink and it's the same with loneliness. It seems as if everything is OK until you suddenly realise it’s a problem. Until you realise it's a problem you don't know its problem.

Once he was on his way to recovery, Nick wanted to know if he was the only one suffering in this way. He sent out a survey to other senior executives to find out how lonely they were in their roles. His first finding in 2019 was before the pandemic and showed that 30% of the senior executives he surveyed actually admitted they were suffering from loneliness in the workplace. He went back to the same group in 2020 during the pandemic and the figure had gone up to 59%. He was definitely not alone!

The senior executives Nick surveyed worked in the C-Suite in large multinationals based in Singapore. A number of them were European or American, working as regional directors in large companies so they were displaced from their home countries and often only had their immediate family with them. They needed a different type of support without knowing it.

Nick knew about the loneliness so the next question he asked then was whether this was something they would talk to HR or their boss to. The answer was that 84% wouldn't. The type of role they were in meant they were the people who needed to be seen as being the strongest and stereotypically not able to ask for help. Some people have external executive coaches but many people find it hard to trust internal bosses or HR so who did they turn to? When asked do you seek professional help 75% said no so they were coping by themselves. Nick feels that one of the few good things that came out of the was that psychologists and therapists could be seen online so people could start to reach out without being seen in a waiting room somewhere. Anonymity is there now so there has been some progress but people are still reluctant to talk about it and seem to deny it because the stigma is still there.

Many of these leaders are what Nick calls anxious over achievers like himself. He was not good at high school went overseas to study at university. Once he got a taste of winning scholarships and topping some classes he wanted to take it to the workplace.  What was important was getting to the top, getting power and getting promotions packages. What he saw when he conducted his interviews was that many were as anxious as he had been and thought the way to prove themselves was to achieve and get power in the company. There are many leaders walking around feeling very anxious.

Men tend to define themselves by their work about what they have rather than who they are. If the job is lonely then that's what you've striven for and your sense of achievement is linked to. The realisation that this can feel empty can have a real impact. Nick found that women tended to have a few close friends that they could be vulnerable with. They could share some of the challenges or issues facing them. If you are exposing yourself to a friend that friend will help and guide you but men often have good friends to play golf with, to have couple of drinks with or have a good time with.  Nick’s way of relaxing meant not bothering friends with issues he was having at work, rather it was something he left at the office. He went out and had a good time but then woke up in the middle of the night worrying about a problem that was still there in the morning. He was bad at having someone to talk to about his issues and it was the same with many of the executives he interviewed.

Men can be just as emotionally intelligent as long as they are skilled up to be but there may be a cultural thing around the acceptance that men shouldn’t talk to each other about difficult issues. The current generation breaking it down through and there is a new attitude. Some of this may come down to parenting. In Asia people are very quiet about what’s happening in their family and there is a lot of stigma about mental health and addictions generally.  People keep things to themselves a lot more than in the western world where we are speaking up a lot at the moment.

At work the leaders are often a parent substitute and need to create an adult culture where just deciding you don't like something isn’t OK because you still have to come to work and perform. If leaders are lonely they will find it hard to provide a positive adult culture with supportive mechanisms right through. Vulnerability has to start at the top. No one is going to knock the bosses door and open up about the issues or challenges they are facing if the leader has never been seen to be vulnerable. Why are we all so scared of admitting to others that we are going through a challenging time?

The world of work is changing and although styles of leadership before Covid weren’t working, they are still are being pursued. A new style of leadership may be needed going forward. Career limiting mistakes can drive leaders to loneliness. The easiest thing to do is make a mistake - it’s not about all the brilliant decisions you make, its how few bad decisions you make. This is what leads to the dumming down of the average.  It’s a sign of weakness to make a mistake. Admitting weakness is a sign that we are struggling and that is a mistake. We need to change that. If you have a leader who is lonely, ethical decisions start to be comprised as well because the leader becomes weaker.

There is some positive change though. In his own company Nick operates a fail fast policy so as soon as you make a small mistake people need to admit it and share it so everyone can learn from it. If there is a culture where people are comfortable sharing their mistakes and what they learned from it, people would not be so scared and mistakes will be dealt with and not be so costly. For example, in Nick’s company the marketing team have an additional budget called ‘Test and Trial’ which they can use to try new things so if it doesn't work out its ok and people learn from the exercise.

Nick’s networking organisation, Executives’ Global Network (EGN) Singapore providing more than 600 senior executives and business owners with a safe and confidential space where they can share their challenges, receive support, and learn from each other. It’s as if you have your own private advisory board or an external management team. You can put your problem on the table for the facilitators or moderators to discuss and the aim is that executives leave a session feeling the pressure has been lifted. Just talking can help because even if they don't get the answer, they get sympathy and support. It’s a shared experience. The perception that people at the top don't get lonely is a very dangerous one.

You can find out more about Nick at nickjonsson.com

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Loneliness and isolation in the hybrid workplace

Long before the pandemic and the rise of working from home, loneliness and isolation was something felt by a number of office-based employees. Even if they were based in modern, open-plan offices designed to help collaboration, there was often little actual face-to-face communication. The increase in hybrid working has in many instances led to workers becoming even more isolated from other team members.

A report by Buffer (State of Remote Work 2022) found an increase in the number of remote and hybrid workers struggling with loneliness, from 20% in 2020 to 24% in 2022. It also found that 52% of employees globally felt less connected to their co-workers since they started remote working. Another study from Totaljobs found 60% of employees reported feeling lonely in their professional life, citing continued home working and irregular office patterns as increasing the problem.

By its nature hybrid working can accentuate feelings of isolation and disconnection by allowing siloed cliques and networks to develop and create distinct work experiences, cultures, and groups. Employees who are back in the office full-time can become dominant as they are able to centrally control information, knowledge and responsibilities. Teamwork, which generally improves the quality of a person’s working life, simply increases the issues within teams that have always existed - composition, interdependence and differences in working hours – whilst meetings where part of the team is in the office and the other is remote can easily become unbalanced and increase feelings of disconnection.

The feelings of isolation however, are not always related to the lack of interaction with colleagues, but rather to the feeling of exclusion that they have. In a 2020 Igloo study, almost 60% of teleworkers surveyed said they didn’t have certain information because it was communicated in person with 55% reported being excluded from meetings because they weren’t physically present.

Social isolation is one of the greatest risks hybrid workers face but there are some activities and strategies that can stop employees from feeling professionally isolated:

1. Regular face-to-face interactions

Make sure colleagues often meet in person by creating opportunities for informal chats, so people can share information and get to know one another better.

2. Communicate well

Use different channels to communicate with colleagues. Be transparent, and keep everyone in the loop in terms of work and, if they are happy to do so, what’s going on in their personal lives.

3. Evolve learning and development

Set up processes that work in a hybrid setup, e.g. days when junior employees can work with their line managers in the office. If possible invest in learning platforms and tools suitable for hybrid environments to enable people to develop their knowledge and skills.

4. Improve leadership

Leaders need to know how to manage in the hybrid world, to understand and spot any potential challenges and provide a role model to their teams.

5. Enhance onboarding

An in-person onboarding process is essential.  As well as work-led and social buddies, leaders need to be involved in the process to enable new employees settle smoothly into the company and their role.

Although hybrid working is often presented as the future of work and does bring many benefits, it is becoming obvious that there are some problems in its implementation and one of these is that more people feel lonely at work than ever before. A feeling of isolation at home, a lack of genuine connection to other team members, lack of belonging within the company culture, or even lack of visibility and recognition can all contribute to a sensation of loneliness at work.

Loneliness and isolation can be an issue regardless of whether employees are in a physical or virtual working environment but if a company doesn’t make an effort to address these issues, the hybrid work model will only have a negative impact on employee cohesion and motivation.