One nite alone...

"One nite alone..." is a solo piano song by Prince and is also how a large number of the population is spending their nights in the OECD - OCDE countries. From the OECD chart below, we can see that in many countries, about a quarter to a third of the working age population is living in single-person households.

Before the pandemic, the effect of living alone was largely mitigated by the small amount of time (5%) full-time employees were spending working from home. That is, the vast majority of the adult working population would spend most of their active working day (if we also include commuting time in the mix) in a public populated space or in an office among colleagues. Thus, their perceived loneliness was limited to their non-working hours.

But with the pandemic the feelings of loneliness and isolation skyrocketed, both for the working age and for the non-working age population and even more so for those living alone. The pandemic ending notwithstanding, the working from home trend continued and it appears, (see below latest chart from the WFHResearch group), that it is stabilizing at around 30%. This means that, on average, employees spend about 1.5 days working from home each weak, which in some industries is as high as 2.5.

If employees spend around a third of their working time at home, and at the same time the amount of single person households is increasing, it is safe to expect that a sizeable number of employees spend entire days and nights all alone. In a brief exchange I had with the universally recognized expert in WFH and Professor of Economics at Stanford University Nick Bloom , he acknowledged that "there is a big measurement gap" in this space. That is, although we know that single person households are increasing and are a major source of loneliness, and we also know that WFH is here to stay, there is a single question that has not been answered yet:

What percentage of the employees are actually alone when working from home?

With the data we have today it is difficult to answer. On one hand, we do know that employees desire on average to work around 2.5 days per week and the percentage of employees preferring to work fully on-site in the future is close to 6%, according to a recent @Gallup survey.

However, we don't know, or at least I couldn't find any data showing, how many people are in the house while a person is working from home. It is of atmost importance to measure or accurately calculate this number particularly for those living in single-person households. Maybe the vast majority of them belong to those spending most of their time in the office, when there is an office. Or maybe they self-organize and meet and work with friends and/or colleagues when they are fully-remote or during their WFH days.

One way to answer the question could be by using techniques similar to the ones used for measuring office occupancy (e.g. sensors). However, as this may be considered intrusive by many employees it is best to rely on good old survey methods, i.e. to simply politely ask the employees.

But, still, we might not know for sure even if we try to measure it, and therefore the organizations need to be proactive on this matter for the well-being of their employees. While they need to respect their employees desire to WFH, at the same time they must encourage generally all the employees and specifically those who live alone to actually avoid working from home alone over extended periods of time. Otherwise, the loneliness epidemic will keep growing and transform into a mental health crisis. According to a another recent Gallup survey, about a quarter of adults worldwide already feel very or fairly lonely.

But can we find a compromise between the workers subjective desire to work from home and the objective need to reduce loneliness and isolation?

At Coremoting , we designed a new working mode, the Coremoting Working Mode, while trying to answer exactly this very question. Employees with adequate space at home, and wanting to work from home but not alone, may offer their space to colleagues during working hours to co-work together during what we call a "coremoting session". Corresponding employees who cannot or do not want to work from home they may request a space at a colleague's house. They may not want to go to the office either because there is no office or because the commute is too long (60% of those wanting to work from home indicated the commute as the primary reason for wanting to work from home - WFHResearch data).

With the use of an intelligent matching engine and using criteria selected by the employees-users, the coremoting sessions may be scheduled with safety, security and comfort with colleagues that match their location, interests and/or preferences.

By purposefully and intentionally promoting in-person co-working even when working-from-home, loneliness and isolation may be seriously mitigated and employees may discover a new social layer for connecting and socializing. And even if those living alone may still spend the "nite" alone, at least they can spend the working day together, and, who knows...