COMMENT London has been described as facing a “loneliness epidemic”, with the capital’s population more likely to be affected than any other part of the UK. Growing rates of loneliness are having an immediate impact on our happiness and mental health and a potentially longer-term impact on life expectancy given its link to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
The loneliness challenge facing London raises an important question around the role of commercial real estate in helping to address the problem. Over the next few months, Future Places Studio, in partnership with HB Reavis UK, will be undertaking a piece of research which seeks to explore this in more detail, with a specific focus on how connected we feel to community through the places where we work.
We know from secondary research that the association between loneliness and health is particularly pertinent in the workplace, with lonely workers having worse occupational functioning and wellbeing, pointing to potential implications for workers’ health and career progression, and possible costs for employers.
We also know that the greatest and most effective response to loneliness is to feel part of and connected to community. For some people, community comes from the neighbourhoods in which they live or the sporting and social groups they are a part of, however the daily treadmill of work and care responsibilities can limit the time required to commit to such communities. In the UK, more than 50% of adults admit to feeling lonely and 28% put this down to a lack of free time.
For the past few years the great enabler of more free time has purported to be the post-pandemic world of remote work, with reduced commutes leading to a greater work-life balance. Despite this, it seems to be having little impact on addressing loneliness, with a post-pandemic survey reporting that full-time remote work was said to increase loneliness by up to 67%.
Through our research we want to explore all of this in a bit more detail.
How connected to community do we feel in the different places that we work? When we work remotely, do we feel left out? When we work in the office, do we ever suffer from a feeling of loneliness?
We hope the insight generated from this research will help our sector to develop workplaces that foster and cultivate a sense of community to ensure that we are responding to and tackling issues such as loneliness. With this collective goal in mind, we would love to get your opinion and to help us do so we have launched a survey which seeks to explore how connected we feel to community in the places that we work.
To participate in the survey, please follow this link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QD669WY
The final research will be published in summer 2024 by HB Reavis UK.
Jack Sallabank is founding director of Future Places Studio
