How can employees cope with the remote working loneliness and bolster connection during periods of isolation? Cheryl Rickman offers some advice
Changes to working lives over the last year have impacted wellbeing. From the enforced isolation and difficulty switching off caused by working from home to the anxiety and uncertainty about future income caused by furlough – the effects of the pandemic have taken a toll on worker’s mental health.
If being furloughed or the prospect of returning to work has made you fearful, it can be difficult to concentrate. While an extended lack of connection can lead to depression and a lost sense of purpose.
Those water cooler conversations and other brief social exchanges in the office may seem insignificant but, without them, we can feel bereft and end up missing the colleagues we work with as well as the family and friends we socialise with.
Certainly, if you’re struggling to cope with the isolation of working from home, you’re not alone.
Job board, Totaljobs found that almost half (46%) of UK workers experienced loneliness during lockdown with younger workers especially struggling. This is perhaps an inevitable consequence of working solo from the confines of home – a challenging transition to make, especially if you’re used to working for a big company with lots of staff or working in a busy open-plan office.
Even with constant virtual meetings over Zoom, the endless screen-time and online interaction replacing face-to-face can take its toll, because we’re generally interacting with half the number of people with whom we’d ordinarily interact in an office setting, and virtual rather than face-to-face make it more challenging to develop trust, empathy and connection.
Loneliness is subjective. Just because you’re working from home in isolation, doesn’t mean you’re lonely. Just as being surrounded by people in a workplace, doesn’t mean you’re not. It depends how connected you feel to the people in your life.
Loneliness, like hunger and thirst, is a feeling that flags up that we are deficient in the nutrients of connection.
So how can employees cope with the remote working loneliness and bolster connection during periods of isolation?
1Give yourself autonomy and set your own routine. Having isolation imposed on us can make us feel like we’re being punished and not in control of the situation. This explains why remote working when it’s our own choice can feel more positive an experience than the enforced WFH of the pandemic. When it’s something we’ve chosen, we are more likely to see the benefits of solitude and working from home (the enhanced creativity from reduced distraction; the comfort of wearing lounge wear all day and the flexibility of more family time and/or leisure time that can replace the time spent commuting). If you can set your own hours and start/finish at a time that suits you, this structured autonomy can help you see the benefits of working from home more readily. Meanwhile, setting a routine for work start, end and break times, along with a routine for what you do before work to mentally prepare and after work to switch off can help with mental health management. (For example, go for a run or do a workout before work and pack work tools away out of sight and go for a walk after work).
2Schedule positivity-boosting activities during regular working breaks to counter the negative impact of loneliness. Try writing down three things you are grateful for, performing a random act of kindness or making a thank you card during your lunch break then delivering it. Giving thanks is a gift to ourselves and the recipient as it makes us feel grateful while making the recipient feel appreciated too. Kindness, gratitude and creativity are all great well-being boosters and positive emotion is important to foster during challenging times as it improves our cognitive functioning and ability to problem solve.
3Get out of the house and tap into the flexibility and work-life balance that working from home can offer. Go somewhere for lunch (ideally with a colleague to maintain working relationships) or break up the day by going for a walk in nature in the morning, a quick walk round the block at lunchtime and a trip out in the car to the beach or somewhere you’d not usually visit at the end of the working day. If your work is such that you can work from anywhere with a web connection, hit the road occasionally and work from a coffee shop, a library, anywhere you’re not alone. Just escaping the confines of home can make a big difference.
4Replace the buzz of conversation with background music of your choice. Or you could try The Sound of Colleagues, a Spotify playlist of workplace sounds, such keyboards, printers, chatter and coffee machines. The office soundtrack was created as a joke by Swedish music studio Red Pip, but soon took off as over half a million people tuned into over lockdown.
5Check in with yourself and colleagues. Ask people if they’re okay, if they need anything and practice active listening – give the speaker your undivided attention; nod, smile and offer feedback. Then check in with yourself. What might you need to nourish yourself in this moment? To stretch and take some deep breaths? To get some fresh air? To put some music on and dance round the kitchen (something you only get to do when you’re working solo from the comfort of your own home).
6Stay active. Go for a bike ride, stick to a morning work-out routine. Swim, dance, run – exercise releases feel good chemicals. You could even sign-up to a remote yoga class or fitness challenge together with other work colleagues.
7Synergise connection. If busyness impedes connection time, you could synergise multiple tasks into the same time period. For example, if you need to walk the dog, discuss a project with a colleague, and post a parcel, invite your colleague over for coffee then continue your chat as you walk the dog to the post office. Or talk to your colleague on the phone while you do so.
8Ask for help. It may be easier to share your feelings from behind a screen or more difficult, depending on your personality, but when you ask for help you are giving someone the opportunity to make a difference and feel good, because that’s how helping you will make them feel. It will also make you feel better because a problem shared really is a problem halved.
Cheryl Rickman is a positive psychology practitioner and author of new book Navigating Loneliness: How to connect with yourself and others, Welbeck.
