Work Loneliness Is Increasing – A New Project Launched in the JATKOT Research Group Focuses on the Relationship Between Work Loneliness and Workplace Learning
Work loneliness has become a broad societal challenge today. One in five working-age Finns and one in three young adults experience loneliness at work. According to the 2026 loneliness barometer conducted by the Finnish Red Cross, experiences of loneliness have increased since 2025, as 65% of respondents reported feeling lonely at least sometimes. Loneliness thus affects an increasing number of people. In working life, loneliness produces numerous negative consequences, weakening employees’ job performance, collaboration, creativity, and learning.
Remote and hybrid work have changed the work practices and the quality of social interaction, thereby posing challenges to employees’ sense of relatedness. At the same time, discussions about self-direction, individual autonomy, and freedom draw attention to a culture of working alone. When excessive, self-direction and autonomy can make employees too detached from one another and increase experiences of lacking support and being left alone – especially in remote work and in challenging work and learning situations.
What role do workplace learning situations play in preventing experiences of work loneliness?
In the Enterprising Person – Lonely Learner? -project, funded by the Finnish Work Environment Fund and launched in January, I examine work loneliness and its construction from the perspective of workplace learning in Finnish micro-enterprises. The study pays particular attention to how digital communication tools used in hybrid and remote work transform interaction among personnel.
When spontaneous encounters and interactions with colleagues decrease, for example, the risk of communication problems and misunderstandings may increase. A key question is how a sense of relatedness is formed through digital communication tools and what kinds of challenges may arise in this process.
When employees can share work-related knowledge, help one another, and work collaboratively, workplace learning situations can at best enable a sense of relatedness. On the other hand, employees’ experiences of loneliness and separation from others may weaken, for example, sharing of knowledge and expertise and the creation, development, and innovation of new ideas together.
Enhancing A Sense of Community Instead of a Culture of Coping Alone
Although loneliness is a highly subjective and personal experience in which social relationships are not fulfilled in a satisfactory and meaningful way, it is also important to examine loneliness as a socially and culturally constructed phenomenon in the workplace. Thereby, this project seeks to uncover the everyday organizational practices and factors through which experiences of work loneliness can be prevented. Work loneliness and its prevention are a shared responsibility of the entire work community. In preventing work loneliness, the key lies in the quality, not the quantity, of social interactions.
The project produces understanding of how experiences of work loneliness are constructed in the everyday practices of work communities and what consequences these experiences have for personnel workplace learning. The findings also offer insights for organizations for example, in developing practices and guidelines for hybrid and remote work.
Instead of an individualistic culture that emphasizes coping alone, organizations should build a communal and caring culture by paying attention to small yet meaningful everyday encounters.
Considering the extensive societal consequences of work loneliness at both the individual and organizational levels, research on work loneliness remains limited, especially in relation to workplace learning. Therefore, more knowledge and understanding of work loneliness and its consequences on personnel workplace learning are needed.
Sara Keronen, postdoctoral researcher, JATKOT research group
https://uefconnect.uef.fi/en/sara.keronen/
https://uefconnect.uef.fi/en/enterprising-person-lonely-learner-a-narrative-research-on-workplace-loneliness-in-learning-situations-in-microenterprises/