00:13.320
Michelle LIM: I'm here to talk about meaningful social connection at work.
00:16.950
Michelle LIM: and before I start I would like to acknowledge that I'm on the lands of the Wurundjeri people who are the traditional owners here.
00:22.950
Michelle LIM: and acknowledge
00:25.940
Michelle LIM: that any aboriginal, and Torres Strait Islander people who might be watching this today
00:31.170
Michelle LIM: and pay respects to elders, past, present, and celebrate the diversity of aboriginal peoples
00:37.020
Michelle LIM: in terms of their ongoing cultures and connections to the land and water
00:43.710
Michelle LIM: I am going to talk about why, it's important to address loneliness in the workplace.
00:50.080
Michelle LIM: And this is the agenda. We are going to 1st define what the issue is. So what is loneliness and what it's not.
00:57.500
Michelle LIM: And the reason why I do start from this definition is because loneliness is an issue that's rife with misconceptions, and what we need to do is to kind of set everyone on to the same definitions.
01:10.830
Michelle LIM: And this will influence the way we actually address it.
01:15.000
Michelle LIM: And we're also going to kind of touch on why we should care about it. After all, loneliness is not something that's new. This is something that has that we experience from the the dawn of time and really been integrated in the way we've evolved as a species.
01:32.660
Michelle LIM: So we will touch very briefly on the research that really highlights the importance of addressing what we call persistent or chronic or really high levels of loneliness.
01:45.920
Michelle LIM: Then we will talk a little bit about how loneliness affects you and your workplace, and what we should be doing about it.
01:52.960
Michelle LIM: But before I go on, I would just like to do a very quick introduction of who enigmas together is because enigmas together is a charity that's really been formed and developed in the last few years, and, in short, we are supported by many, many collaborators and supporters.
02:11.660
Michelle LIM: We have around 57 organizations that sit under this coalition.
02:16.654
Michelle LIM: We are really a synergy between academics like myself, but also people working in the corporate sector and also not for profits all around Australia.
02:27.510
Michelle LIM: What we do is we are trying to reduce the gap between what we see in science to what's being practiced in our community in our workplaces, in our schools and in our policies. So this is an example
02:41.910
Michelle LIM: of white papers that we've developed for policymakers in Australia to really sum up the evidence on why, it's important to address loneliness and what we can really be doing within our wider communities in terms of policies and practice. So these white papers are available on our website.
03:00.240
Michelle LIM: Other things that we do as well are things like recommending how we measure loneliness. This will help us identify if our interventions are actually working or not working. And
03:12.040
Michelle LIM: this is the loneliness outcomes framework which is based on a huge psychometric validation study that we did
03:18.120
Michelle LIM: in the Uk, and looked at
03:20.970
Michelle LIM: best kinds of measures that we know of, that we could
03:26.660
Michelle LIM: deliver to people on the ground.
03:30.560
Michelle LIM: There are other things that we do as well things like loneliness, resources, and also really sharing the live experience of people. We do know that loneliness is a subjective experience, so we do also want to make sure that the live experience voices are being heard, and that we, loneliness itself doesn't have a face, as you can tell.
03:52.810
Michelle LIM: Young and old people from different cultures, and for those of you who may know loneliness, awareness week that has just passed, we looked at different kinds of communities that may be affected by loneliness. And in this case we looked at persistent loneliness. So who actually is more at risk of feeling lonely and then staying lonely
04:18.250
Michelle LIM: to start with the definition. I think it's really important that we all are coming from the same page.
04:24.250
Michelle LIM: So what loneliness is is a distressing feeling that comes up when you feel your current relationships do not meet your current social needs. Now, this is a subjective feeling, and it's very difficult to observe by a 3rd person.
04:38.720
Michelle LIM: it is often a feeling that people hide due to stigma and due to negative perceptions.
04:44.070
Michelle LIM: and we now know from the research that loneliness itself is a normal human signal for us to connect with others, so we can thrive and flourish as a person. So this is not a pathological feeling.
04:56.760
Michelle LIM: I think the issues that we have is that we perceive it to be a negative feeling, and that we often don't. We're not responsive to actually addressing loneliness, and when we don't address or respond accordingly to very innate human feelings, we often, then have implications to our wider health.
05:23.320
Michelle LIM: so we need to respond to feeling lonely, just as we respond to other human needs like feeling hungry and feeling thirsty.
05:33.230
Michelle LIM: And we need to make sure that this is not the same, or at least we do
05:38.720
Michelle LIM: perceive loneliness differently to another term, which is what we call social isolation, and sometimes loneliness and social isolation are very much used interchangeably.
05:50.010
Michelle LIM: but they are different concepts. So isolation, social isolation is about objectively having
05:56.120
Michelle LIM: few social relationships.
05:58.720
Michelle LIM: social roles, group memberships, infrequent social interactions.
06:03.900
Michelle LIM: Now to be less lonely and less socially isolated is to be more socially connected. So that word social connection really means both the objective and subjective feelings of isolation together. So we do know now from research that social isolation and loneliness are equally bad for our health
06:26.530
Michelle LIM: when we are both socially isolated and lonely, which is sometimes what we call social disconnection.
06:33.200
Michelle LIM: that has quite massive implications on our health and well-being.
06:38.400
Michelle LIM: But to kind of pull this back to loneliness, and because loneliness is a slightly more tricky
06:46.080
Michelle LIM: concept. To understand the best definition I really have, or the best kind of quote that I do have is actually from the late Robin Williams, where he says, I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not the worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.
07:04.730
Michelle LIM: Now this again makes that distinction of being physically isolated versus feeling subjectively isolated, so you can be in a group of people, but still feel lonely.
07:17.990
Michelle LIM: and you can also be isolated and socially isolated, but actually do not feel lonely at all.
07:23.110
Michelle LIM: And what we're really trying to PIN down is that when people feel lonely they will say things like, Oh, no one understands me or no one has my back. No, I don't have anyone to turn to or talk to, despite being around people.
07:41.270
Michelle LIM: So why is this important? As I mentioned earlier, this is not a new concept we've we've felt lonely, for since the dawn of time since we've evolved.
07:51.360
Michelle LIM: and we do know now that loneliness, when we do not address it when we ignore it. When we feel like we have no options to actually have those meaningful social connections. We know that we're around 26% more likely to die earlier.
08:09.510
Michelle LIM: We also do know that loneliness itself leads to poorer physical health. And there's a lot of robust evidence that looked at the incidence of cardiometabolic disease. So if you are more lonely, you're about more likely to report cardiovascular problems or metabolic disease. About 4 years down the line.
08:31.470
Michelle LIM: We also know that loneliness is associated with poor mental health and increased suicidality, and the longitudinal research which is a research that looks at these kinds of factors over a period of time is that loneliness leads to higher levels of depression, higher levels of social anxiety and highest levels of paranoia.
08:52.130
Michelle LIM: We also know that if you are lonely and you don't have those meaningful social connection.
08:57.530
Michelle LIM: you're more likely to also show kind of poorer health regulation behaviors, you're less incentivized
09:04.210
Michelle LIM: to keep well. So things like reduced physical activity, poorer diets, but also showing poor quality. Sleep when you feel like you do not have those meaningful social connections.
09:20.390
Michelle LIM: So what do we actually know about how this plays out in our workplaces?
09:25.860
Michelle LIM: So we do know now that loneliness influences our workplaces in a much bigger capacity than we thought.
09:33.660
Michelle LIM: And in fact, we do know that from the Uk economics study new economics foundation study.
09:41.380
Michelle LIM: we do know that loneliness is actually costly. In fact, it costs the UK. Government
09:47.660
Michelle LIM: around 2.7 billion dollars pounds per year.
09:52.175
Michelle LIM: And
09:53.190
Michelle LIM: how it does influence the workplaces are things like poorer health outcomes, as what I mentioned before.
10:00.990
Michelle LIM: and also well-being outcomes. So we do know that people who are lonely and less engaged at work. If they feel they have no meaning for social connections within their community and their family, or at work, they're less likely to be engaged. They're also less likely to be productive more generally, and you have poorer staff retention so overall, we know that it influences the way we work and how efficiently we work. In fact, there are studies that looked at creativity.
10:29.580
Michelle LIM: ability to cooperate with colleagues, that people who are more lonely actually are less able to to show creativity, and actually are less cooperative with their colleagues.
10:43.080
Michelle LIM: We also know that, you know you're more likely to have to take more carer's leave. You're more likely to be more sick. So again, loneliness itself has these kind of secondary implications to how things actually play out for employers, and this is for both private and public employers that we know of.
11:03.800
Michelle LIM: and in the state of the nation report in 2023. We do know that people who are lonely versus people who are not lonely are more likely to report absenteeism. So in fact, about 11% of people who are lonely
11:18.100
Michelle LIM: report absentees are compared to 8% of people who are not lonely and other things like overall work impairment. 35% of people who are lonely actually report more significantly more overall work impairment compared to people who are not lonely.
11:33.840
Michelle LIM: and also what we call presentism. So actually going to work despite feeling unwell. So 31% of people who are lonely report presentism compared to 22% of people who are not lonely.
11:46.910
Michelle LIM: And lastly, there's also implications of how we work outside, you know so impairment outside of work. So about 36% of people who are lonely also report impairment in their activities outside work. So they bring it in the work, but also outside the work.
12:07.090
Michelle LIM: So all of this data and emerging data from around the world is basically saying that we really need to pay attention to loneliness in the workplace, and actually looked at how it actually influences our workspaces, our colleagues, the businesses that we are trying to run because it has bigger implications than we otherwise thought of before.
12:30.080
Michelle LIM: So what can we do? I really want to kind of focus on what we should be doing in terms of creating a culture of connection. We know that loneliness is not even though it's highly prevalent issue, because it is normal to feel lonely.
12:45.520
Michelle LIM: What happens is what's really happening is that we're staying lonely. And we really need to create a culture of connection all the way from our home and family. You know, commitment to quality time that's purposeful and focused with our partners, children, family neighbors, all the way down to a wider community within our neighborhood and
13:09.050
Michelle LIM: in community to our schools and education. How do we actually educate our young people to learn to navigate social challenges in a much more dynamic way in a healthier way. How do we actually train our health professionals, for example, to identify people who are at risk, who are coming through the health system?
13:28.300
Michelle LIM: And of course, our workplaces. So many of us spend a lot of time at work. We need to be equipped, not just from the employee's perspective, but the employee's perspective
13:38.790
Michelle LIM: about knowledge and skills of how we develop and maintain meaningful social connection even in this day and age with hybrid working. Because we do know that hybrid working actually increases our social isolation.
13:51.590
Michelle LIM: and if we have increased social isolation, we do know that down the line
13:56.940
Michelle LIM: it does increase our risk of problematic loneliness.
14:01.350
Michelle LIM: And of course there are kind of bigger macro systems like really influencing government to think about strategies of how we can address loneliness across different sectors, including the business sector.
14:18.020
Michelle LIM: And what do we know? We are really fortunate to work with Aia, Australia to look at what we can do to promote social connection at the workplace. And we have developed an online digital tool that can be delivered through your learning management systems, bringing together the evidence, bringing together community awareness at the workplace, about what loneliness is, what it's not.
14:45.180
Michelle LIM: How do we actually motivate people to actually address it, really deepening their understanding of this as an important health issue which is now recognized, not a soft issue. So we actually
14:59.500
Michelle LIM: have developed an evidence base in form, understanding of what loneliness is.
15:06.320
Michelle LIM: what we can do to
15:11.078
Michelle LIM: reduce it and understand the differences between social isolation being alone solitude which really influence the way we take action.
15:18.940
Michelle LIM: what the contributing factors are
15:21.510
Michelle LIM: so that we can actually reduce and address those mitigating contributing factors to mitigate the problems.
15:29.190
Michelle LIM: So this program now is available for all Aia partners, and there's a discount for partners to the end of 2024, and ongoing as well. There are reasons for us to really think about what we can do to actually address loneliness within our employees.
15:50.990
Michelle LIM: We know now that loneliness is identified as the next public health priority
15:58.010
Michelle LIM: as recognized by the World health organization. This is above and beyond mental ill health or physical health and well-being.
16:04.840
Michelle LIM: We need to really broaden our understanding of what loneliness is, what is not. How do we take action? How do we build meaningful social connections and
16:14.160
Michelle LIM: the meaningful social connection at work? Training package is the 1st step
16:19.490
Michelle LIM: and do contact us for further information, because we will be able to support inquiries about what it is and how we can actually better support your organization.
16:29.670
Michelle LIM: So thank you very much, and we look forward to hearing from you.
