Workplace loneliness has been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic transformed the way a lot of businesses operate — with most shifting to hybrid or completely remote working.

However, that all started almost five years ago (half a decade, can you believe it?!). While some businesses are continuing on as remote or hybrid, many have returned to the office.

And still, loneliness persists.

Brand new data from aaask reveals that this problem could be even worse than you might think. The survey aaasked 170 people (who work remotely at least some of the time) how they currently feel in the workplace.

Let’s take a look at some of the highlights from the data.

Loneliness is not caused by working from home.

The data revealed that 60% of people feel more lonely at work than they did 5 years ago.

Honestly, his figure didn’t really come as a shock. Given the pandemic, it’s easy to blame working from home for this rise in workplace loneliness. The solution is just to get everyone back on site, right?

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy.

The survey also found that 47% of people always or often feel lonely when working from home …

… and 43% of people always or often feel lonely when working on-site (in the office).

Now, this data was surprising! It shows that remote working isn’t to blame for increased loneliness. It’s clear that regardless of where people are, they’re feeling a disconnect from their colleagues.

Current strategies aren’t working …

We didn’t just uncover problems with our data. We also explored solutions to workplace loneliness.

Surprisingly (compared with the above statistics), most people (78%) are largely happy with the methods their employers have put in place for them to stay connected and engaged with co-workers.

These methods include email, virtual meetings, asynchronous communication tools, and project management tools.

“At aaask, we can relate to this. We use all of these methods to keep our co-workers connected — including regular, automated feedback surveys — and we find this combination works well for keeping everyone on the same page.”

84% of people even said they have a true friend at work — someone they can rely on for emotional support.

And while this is all great stuff, it’s clearly not good enough. If it was, almost half of all workers wouldn’t state that they are still lonely most of the time.

The Impact of Loneliness

Loneliness has many detrimental impacts on people on both a personal and professional level.

In fact, 76% of people said workplace loneliness has negatively impacted their mental health, with 40% adding that the impact had been severe.

On a professional level, the biggest impact of loneliness in the workplace is a reduction in engagement (57%), followed by a sense of burnout (45%).

Workplace loneliness has also made 43% of people want to quit their jobs, reduced the overall job satisfaction of 28% of people, and made 24% of people feel as though they are disconnected from their team.

Overall, 73% of survey respondents agreed that workplace loneliness had affected their career growth and professional development.

While all companies experience these challenges to some extent, it’s quite shocking to see that the figures are so high.

If your team isn't engaged, doesn't feel like they are making any strides professionally, and feels disconnected from each other, you can probably guess that productivity and work output are going to take a big hit.

So, employers seem to be doing all the right things …

They’re putting tools in place that people are happy with, and companies are making it so colleagues can form close bonds and friendships.

But workplace loneliness isn’t improving.

What can we do?

Given the data, it seems that the issue isn’t making sure we use the correct tools to solve loneliness — it’s making sure we have the correct conversations.

Here are two ways to do just that.

1. Schedule regular one-on-ones.

When asked how they’d most prefer their employer to tackle workplace loneliness, 41% of people said they wanted more virtual check-ins.

Make sure you’re having regular chats with your team. These conversations should offer staff a safe place to talk about any pain points, including workplace loneliness. And if they don’t bring it up, try asking them about it.

Then, work with them to find solutions.

Pro tip: Tools like aaask can help you automate check-ins about anything. You just set a prompt, select a group of co-workers to be included in the conversation, and then aaask sends it out to everyone.

2. Encourage more non-work-related conversations.

If you don’t already, encourage your employees to have conversations that aren’t about work.

Sure, you might worry about the impact this could have on productivity. But a lack of engagement, increased burnout, and reduced job satisfaction, could be much worse. And the reality is these are all caused by workplace loneliness.

Plus, people used to have these conversations anyway — around the water cooler, in the kitchen, or on the way to the bathroom. You’d only be reinstating the time that employees used to use for bonding.

The Bottom Line

It’s clear that a sense of community has been lost (or at least reduced) in the workplace.

Employers can only get that back by asking the right questions and giving their employees more opportunities to build meaningful connections with each other.