Workplace Wellbeing: Building bonds to overcome loneliness

Good social connections at work can ease feelings of isolation. Employers can do much by developing group-based activities, but employees need to take action too

Like many of us, Sally Leadbetter started working from home during the pandemic. 

Sally Leadbetter has been lonely at work. The 46-year-old PR consultant from Kilkenny used to work in a busy agency.

“It was a sociable place,” she says. “I’d chat to colleagues. We’d bounce ideas off one another. I’d bump into people in the coffee shop across the road. There was a great buzz to the working day.”