Most people are lonely at work. Women get lonelier as they climb the ladder
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! CVS CEO Karen Lynch faces challenges in the company's Medicare business expansion, a new report settles the score on side effects for menopause drugs, and Fortune senior reporter Alexa Mikhail shares her reporting on how workplace loneliness hurts women as they advance. Have a wonderful Thursday!
- Loneliest at the top. Ann Shoket, former editor-in-chief of Seventeen magazine and CEO of TheLi.st, a membership community supporting women and nonbinary leaders in their careers, has become an outspoken advocate of prioritizing connections at work. She knows all too well the feeling of loneliness; she felt lonely while climbing the ranks and mistook the sentiment as normal stress and worry. Loneliness puts people at risk for heart disease, anxiety, and depression, but it can also exacerbate gender inequities in the office.
Most dire, Shoket points out, loneliness discourages women from getting promoted or accepting new jobs. According to TheLi.st’s 2023 research, over half of early and mid-career women say they've forfeited a new opportunity or quit altogether because of loneliness. Feeling lonely breeds dissatisfaction, the report finds, leading to high turnover and disengagement.
“It’s a crisis in the workplace,” Shoket says. “It makes employees more likely to be unhappy and discouraged about their opportunities.”
Eighty percent of women report feeling lonely because of their job, with 41% saying work is the loneliest time of their day, according to the most recent survey of over 2,000 white-collar workers, conducted by TheLi.st, in partnership with Berlin Cameron and Benenson Strategy Group. A similar share of men report feeling the same way; the difference is that women are more likely to feel lonely as they progress in their careers compared to men. Half of executive women and the majority of early and mid-career women say their loneliness grew as they got more senior because they felt unsupported and isolated at work; 40% of women overall say they don't feel their company helps them succeed. Male executives, meanwhile, report feeling less lonely as they climbed the ladder.
The onus is on executives to establish supporting, collaborative cultures, but Shoket says there’s a lot we as individuals can do to combat our own loneliness and its negative effects. The time we spend engaging with others has been in sharp decline. The amount of time people spend socializing with friends in person decreased from 60 minutes a day in 2003 to 20 minutes a day in 2020, according to Dr. Vivek Murthy’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. And the pandemic made things worse.
Shoket says that upping our socialization at work by just 10 minutes each day can help reduce the downward turn. Spend a few minutes messaging someone in your professional network, congratulating a coworker on a recent promotion or project, or asking a colleague about a shared hobby. Managers can be intentional about having check-ins with teams, fostering connection during the onboarding process, recognizing employees’ accomplishments, and finding innovative ways to collaborate across teams, such as offering mentorship opportunities.
“It’s not showing up at the networking parties and swirling warm Chardonnay. It’s not big, fancy, expensive conferences,” Shoket says. “These tiny daily habits of staying in touch by text, spending time one-on-one, and literally walking around the office are a really valuable way to nurture your connections.”
You can read my full story on combating workplace loneliness here.
Alexa Mikhail
alexa.mikhail@fortune.com
The Broadsheet is Fortune's newsletter for and about the world's most powerful women. Today's edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
