Practitioner viewpoint

POST COVID, so much has changed, it seems that many people are spending more time than ever on their own, and this is definitely impacting both businesses and individuals.

Historically one of the benefits of further and higher education has been collaboration.  Shared learning situations which helped to develop non-technical skills such as debate, negotiation, innovation and compromise. However, these days students do most of their learning in online sessions and are entering the workplace without the skills or experience to get the best value out of collaborative working.  

Informal coaching and mentoring is suffering too.  Many people have adopted flexible hybrid work patterns, attending office locations in a transitory way, and businesses have adapted the work environment too, transitioning to hot desking and additional meeting rooms to address the changing patterns of attendance.  This makes is much harder for people to collaborate informally through the ebb and flow of normal work activity, and harder still for new workers to develop the supported experience they need to build their competence.

I was recently chatting with a friend who works as an engineer in a big multi-national company.  He observed that new graduates are struggling to cope with the bustle of a collaborative working environment, often sitting with their headphones on all day immersed in their own world.  When they encounter a challenge they go online for a solution, rather than engaging a colleague in conversation or asking for advice, and are therefore missing out on informal learning, time served experience and specific company knowledge, resulting in sub-optimal delivery.

It’s a bit of a dichotomy really, because there’s no doubt that the restrictions of the pandemic also taught us to value social interaction, and people definitely focus on this in their private lives.

So maybe what we’re seeing is a new trend for occupational loneliness.  In many workplace situations people are operating independently of each other, coming together in a structured way for meetings, but missing out on the informal support and engagement that that comes with routinely working in the same place, and collaborating with a group of peers.

Human beings are designed to be social, and we know that isolation and loneliness can have a detrimental effect on mental wellbeing.  The world is a challenging place at the moment, with lots of uncertainty around the economy, the political situation and global security.  This naturally results in concerns about financial stability, job security and personal safety, and without the opportunity to discuss, explore and contextualise these worries can become overwhelming.

It's important to remember that it’s entirely possible to feel alone even when surrounded by people!  Sitting next to someone you barely know in a hot desking space on an ad hoc basis is so very different from being part of a regular ‘work family’ who collaborate, learn and grow together, and provide the support and context to help each other through the challenges of both work and life.

Simon Sinek says “ A team isn’t a group of people who work together, it’ a group of people that trust each other”  

We can’t build trust unless we get to know each other.  So, in 2025 maybe we need to expand our definition of ‘lone workers’ and actively look for opportunities to recreate ‘workplace families’, in order to support personal wellbeing, enable the new generation of workers to develop, and to help our organisations to thrive.