Have you been through periods of life where you’ve felt isolated from the people around you? How about times where you’ve felt a strong sense of connection and belonging? How have the eras of your life felt different in that regard? If it’s a spectrum, where would you place this current era of your life on that spectrum? Would you describe your work life differently from the rest of your life?
Many of us isolated during the Covid-19 pandemic, but loneliness is its own epidemic that both preceded and outlived the shutdowns of the early 2020s. According to the CDC, loneliness has been linked to an increased risk of several health threats, including heart disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression and anxiety, addiction, suicidality and self-harm, dementia, and earlier death. In the workplace, loneliness can limit individual and team performance, reducing creativity and impairing reasoning and decision making. (To quote one of my kids’ favorite characters, Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ Annabeth Chase, “It’s easy to forget what’s important when you’re alone.”)
The epidemic of loneliness has been receiving more attention, though. In May 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a Surgeon General Advisory calling attention to the public health crisis of loneliness, isolation, and lack of connection in the country. The 82-page document outlines how social connection impacts individual health and well-being and how it impacts communities, as well as proposing a national strategy to advance social connection. Spearheaded by a guest essay by Dr. Murthy, the New York Times ran pieces throughout the year shedding light on the topics of loneliness and isolation, including a powerful short video, The Lifespan of Loneliness, showcasing voices from teenagers to people in their 90s sharing how loneliness impacts their life now.
A few years earlier, you may have seen headlines about the UK government creating a role referred to in the press as the “Minister for Loneliness” (in reality, the role was an extension of the existing position of the Minister for Sport and Civil Society, but this wasn’t as catchy). The UK government published its own “strategy for tackling loneliness” in 2018, which was updated in 2022. Japan also opened a new government portfolio, the “Minister in charge of Measures for Loneliness and Isolation,” in 2022, and in 2023 enacted a bill into law to tackle social isolation.
In my time working at Harvard, I was one of the founding members of the staff committee commonly known as the Ministry of Fun, which hosted a number of events each month to build cohesion and comradery. Events included Friday socials, FitBit challenges, board games at lunchtime, and speed networking. These events were entirely separate from the Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging committee initiatives for which I also served on the committee; the Ministry of Fun events were intended to be… fun. A low bar for engagement, and welcoming for all. In retrospect, though, these events wouldn’t reach everyone who felt lonely, nor would they necessarily make a lasting difference. So what options do we have if we wanted to act as a “Minister for Loneliness” in our workplace?
This Week’s Tip:
Draft your own portfolio of tasks as “Minister for Loneliness” (you might prefer a more positive spin on the title – “Minister for Connection,” perhaps). These tasks might include some variation of the following list (h/t Wharton@Work for their thoughts on this):
- Meet people one-on-one over coffee or lunch. Even a 5-minute conversation can make a big difference.
- Avoid impersonal email communication whenever face-to-face is an option. A brief follow-up email may help cement the information, but the personal contact makes a lasting difference.
- Listen well and ask open-ended questions. Seek understanding and getting to know people beyond their work role.
- Support mentoring and micro-mentoring. Offer to be a mentor yourself, but also help connect new (or young) employees with those who have valuable skills to share.
- Start new hires as a cohort. If this is within your purview, it’s a great way to build ongoing connection between people in their early time in your organization.
- Focused on the idea of Unique Diversity and Diverse Unity – what makes each person unique, and how does that come together to create a mosaic rather than a melting pot?
Try these out this week, and let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear from you.
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