How working at home makes loneliness crisis worse for older workers
How are you? is a question workers in the City feel as if they never hear. A law firm partner who fears her life is spiralling out of control says she can’t find any colleagues to talk to. Struggling to cope with an expanding amount of work, a house renovation, financial support for her parents and a child in distress, she finally reached out to her boss. Failing to clock the urgency in her cry for help, he scheduled a meeting in her diary in a month’s time.
The only thing unusual about this experience is that the lawyer actually said anything. While junior staff are encouraged to open up about their struggles at work, corporate leaders who have grown up in a cut-throat environment say they feel pressure to appear “strong” and mimic the behaviour of their predecessors.
Law firms and other big financial institutions often promote their mental health helplines, but most of those in need don’t pick up the phone.
Britain’s loneliness crisis is consuming those in powerful jobs, with senior leaders just as likely to suffer as their younger peers but a lot less likely to talk about it.
The UK’S minister for loneliness has told those affected to just “reach out and talk about it” but for the older generation that doesn’t always feel like a viable option.
For those near the top of the corporate food chain, opening up to a chest-beating chief executive who sits one rung above can feel daunting. Unhealthy behaviours such as working long hours without a break are still celebrated in fast-paced, highly-paid jobs such as law or finance.
Senior staff can struggle to keep up with that facade when faced with life challenges such as illness, divorce or grief, with studies showing that those grieving often don’t take enough time off or feel supported when they go back. Many will feel they have nobody to turn to, with lonely over-50s expected to reach 2m by 2026.
High-ranking staff used to bonding with other senior colleagues over the rush of closing a deal or partying with clients now need to find a way to replace the bravado with vulnerability.
Lucy Myers, founder of Therapeutic Coaching Consultancy, says she has noticed a rise in men aged 35 to 50 reaching out for help with concerns that include a lack of work-life balance, loss of purpose and burnout. It is unlikely that many of these men will have opened up about their struggles at work. Myers says this is when unhealthy coping skills such as alcohol abuse can kick in.
The conversation is slowly changing. Dominic Griffiths, who runs law firm Mayer Brown’s London office, says he suffered his own mental health crisis some years ago but didn’t tell anybody and “just about” coped.
James Bremen, a partner at law firm Quinn Emanuel, says he has been hospitalised for physical exhaustion and pneumonia twice after sleeping only two hours a night. The lawyers opened up after a coroner’s inquest into the death of senior Pinsent Masons’ partner Vanessa Ford suggested that she had suffered an “acute mental health crisis”. The news has rocked the legal sector, with many calling for urgent reform after the inquest heard how she worked 18-hour days. It is clear the conversation about mental health needs to change.
Struggles need to be normalised as physical illness is. There’s a fear among some senior staff that talking could spell the end of their careers, when in reality it is just a “phase that one in three people will go through for a period in their lives”, adds Griffiths.
Working from home has exacerbated the issue as staff find themselves more isolated than ever.
According to the Campaign to End Loneliness, 58pc of UK adults report feeling lonely to some extent, despite the Government investing more than £80m trying to tackle the issue since appointing a loneliness minister in 2018. The focus has understandably been on the young, where as many as nine in 10 aged 18 to 24 are thought to experience loneliness to some degree.
Social media influencers were invited to 10 Downing Street last month to discuss ways they could connect with young people on the issue, and £300m is being spent on refurbishing old youth centres.
Retirees are also on the agenda, with a “know your neighbourhood” project set up last year to encourage old and young neighbours to get together for a walk or a cup of tea.
Those investments are needed, but it leaves a group behind. The midlife senior worker who has not traditionally been considered vulnerable seems to be missing out.
It has always been lonely towards the top, but as the problem gets worse now is the time to work out why.
‘News of Vanessa Ford’s death has rocked the legal sector with many calling for urgent reform’