Ashish KothariMake flourishing your competitive edge

Is the relentless push for productivity masking a quiet crisis of workplace loneliness?

28 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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Ashish Kothari argues that workplace loneliness, worsened by the pandemic, damages individual performance and team dynamics. Lonely workers show reduced task efficiency, less creativity, and worse decision-making. Yet companies keep chasing productivity without addressing the isolation driving people apart.

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Loneliness levels continue to be a challenge. And this was, this was on the upward trajectory before the pandemic. The pandemic amplified, but we are still seeing high levels of loneliness, especially in the workplace today. And we know from the research that loneliness reduces task performance, limits creativity, impairs other aspects of our executive function, like reasoning and decision-making. And so Research has shown that loneliness impacts team performance, motivation, again, lower job satisfaction. And so these are bottom line indications that something isn't working in how we're doing at work, even though the focus right now is on performance, productivity, and efficiency.