--- title: Why the Office Isn’t a Cure for Loneliness description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. canonical: https://time.com/partner-content/charter/why-the-office-isn-t-a-cure-for-loneliness/ author: Brian Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-08-27T09:30:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-27T16:40:25.366Z article:section: Charter og:title: Why the Office Isn’t a Cure for Loneliness og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. 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Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt15c29d033b5277ae/6a906813f92b6b0a3da1794a/charter-announcement-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1000&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- The information presented here is created by Charter, independently from the TIME editorial staff.  Time charter * [flexibility](/partner-content/charter/tag/flexibility/) ## flexibility # Why the Office Isn’t a Cure for Loneliness by [Brian Elliott](https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/) Executive-in-residence, Charter Brian Elliott is Charter's executive-in-residence and CEO of Work Forward. Aug 27, 2026 9:30 AM UTC  by [Brian Elliott](https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/) Executive-in-residence, Charter Brian Elliott is Charter's executive-in-residence and CEO of Work Forward. Aug 27, 2026 9:30 AM UTC Most return-to-office memos rely on the same two words: connection and culture. This summer, those memos got new ammunition as a rash of [headlines](https://www.npr.org/2026/06/08/nx-s1-5848125/remote-work-mental-health-isolation) pointed to [remote work](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tracybrower/2026/06/29/remote-work-can-increase-loneliness-heres-how-to-stay-connected/) as a cause for the [loneliness epidemic](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/opinion/remote-work-depression.html). Leaders looking to justify mandates had new ammo. But a newly released study—combined with research headlines that made waves this summer—are reminders that the location of people’s desks is not always what drives their sense of loneliness or belonging at work. Rather, there are usually other factors at play, and an office mandate rarely fixes the problem. ## **Two studies in opposition share the same flaw** Start with the headlines everybody saw earlier this summer: ["Remote work is making Americans lonelier and sadder.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/remote-work-is-making-americans-lonelier-and-sadder-new-study-suggests/)” The study[ published in _Science_](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec7671) found that workers who hold “remotable jobs” (not necessarily people who actually work from home) and who live alone (only a part of the overall workforce) spend far more time by themselves and report more mental distress. We [covered](https://www.charterworks.com/why-you-shouldnt-let-ceos-nostalgia-drive-remote-work/) the concerns academics like Stanford’s [Nick Bloom](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-bloom-stanford/) had with that study, most notably that controlled experiments show that working remotely boosts wellbeing. Sign up for Charter's newsletter to get the handbook for the future of work delivered to your inbox. Email Address You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our [Terms of Service](https://www.charterworks.com/terms-of-service/) and [Privacy Policy](https://www.charterworks.com/privacy-policy/). Another newly released study points the other way. Researchers[ tracked 7,704 employees](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1848857/full) at a large healthcare system over the course of a year. Remote workers were more likely to use words like belonging, collaboration, and inclusion to describe the organization’s culture (61% of the time vs. 55% for those onsite), and most likely to report a positive sense of connection. Turnover was statistically indistinguishable across the employee groups, but what predicted the people who left was wellbeing, which was higher among remote workers. Remote advocates will be tempted to trumpet this study, but it also has challenges. Remote roles in a healthcare organization are more often administrative, while clinical roles are almost always onsite. A nurse's day is harder than a finance analyst's for reasons that have nothing to do with how often someone badges into a workplace. Both studies carry the same flaw: they report differences based on work location, but ignore multiple other variables that might be bigger drivers of wellbeing, such as workload, manager support, caregiving responsibilities, and demographics. For example, University of Toronto researchers found that [women face more bias in the office](https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/orsc.2022.16949) than they do working remotely. People have many reasons to choose a model that works for them. Broad return-to-office mandates fall equally on those who might benefit and those who do not, while also notoriously [driving resentment](https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5992056-office-attendance-backlash/) when they’re tied to vague claims. A better lever might be building workplaces that speak to how needs are changing due to AI. Loneliness is real—I hear it from leaders every week—but now, it’s more often attributed to AI. Too many hours spent with agents can prompt a growing disconnect between workers, and leaders are wrestling with how the purpose and design of physical workspaces needs to shift as a result. ## **What people are actually coming in for** Consider the conversations I’ve been hearing in recent [Charter Forum](https://www.charterworks.com/forum/) sessions. Just last week, Atlassian research manager[ Alisa Yu](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisa-yu/) said Atlassian is fully distributed, meaning nobody has to come to the office, yet attendance rises every year. "It's so easy to go into this vortex of \[working\] online, quick and fast, and you come out really depleted," she said. "The office is a release valve for the things that we don't get when we're working from home." The company is exploring topics such as potential blueprints for[ AI-enabled offices](https://www.atlassian.com/blog/ai-at-work/ai-made-your-people-faster-but-its-your-office-thats-slowing-them-down) and how they can improve in-person connections. A change in rationale for coming together requires rethinking the spaces provided. "Offices today are really built on yesterday's model,” Yu said. “Most of them have a sea of individual desks, and they also have a lot of conference rooms, \[with\] an underlying assumption that meetings are pre-scheduled." MillerKnoll VP of global research and planning[ Ryan Anderson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryaningr/), meanwhile, has found that team-level usage of AI can bring people together, not distance them. Distributed teams can start simply by documenting their work on digital platforms that everyone—including the AI tools—can see, he said. "But when it comes time to adapting the way a team works, it is incredibly intense and real-time," and being face-to-face can help navigate complex and often emotional issues. ## **What leaders can do** Instead of turning to a mandate as an antidote for wellbeing, focus on what is really[ driving a lack of connection and burnout](https://www.charterworks.com/how-the-machine-pace-of-work-is-burning-out-your-best-employees/) today: an ever-escalating workload exacerbated by AI. Design time together around what AI made harder—process redesign, mentoring, and the hard conversations about what good work looks like now—and let people work where it’s best for them the rest of the week. [_Charter Forum_](https://www.charterworks.com/forum/) _conversations take place under_ [_Chatham House Rule_](https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/chatham-house-rule)_; quotes are shared with the speaker’s permission._ --- ## Read more from Charter [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/) [Open article: Why You Shouldn't Let CEOs' Nostalgia Drive Remote Work](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/why-you-shouldn-t-let-ceos-nostalgia-drive-remote-work/)  ### Why You Shouldn't Let CEOs' Nostalgia Drive Remote Work [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/why-you-shouldn-t-let-ceos-nostalgia-drive-remote-work/) [Open article: AI Is Pushing Some Workers Back to the Office—and Others Out of It](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/ai-is-pushing-some-workers-back-to-the-office-and-others-out-of-it/)  ### AI Is Pushing Some Workers Back to the Office—and Others Out of It [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/ai-is-pushing-some-workers-back-to-the-office-and-others-out-of-it/) [Open article: Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Remote Work Nearly Six Years Later](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7339495/why-we-cant-stop-talking-about-remote-work-nearly-six-years-later/)  ### Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Remote Work Nearly Six Years Later [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7339495/why-we-cant-stop-talking-about-remote-work-nearly-six-years-later/) --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/why-the-office-isn-t-a-cure-for-loneliness/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/why-the-office-isn-t-a-cure-for-loneliness/"},"headline":"Why the Office Isn’t a Cure for Loneliness","datePublished":"2026-08-27T09:30:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-27T16:40:25.366Z","description":"The flawed science behind return-to-office mandates","url":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/why-the-office-isn-t-a-cure-for-loneliness/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt15c29d033b5277ae/6a906813f92b6b0a3da1794a/charter-announcement-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Elliott","jobTitle":"Executive-in-residence, Charter","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/"}],"articleSection":"Charter","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt15c29d033b5277ae/6a906813f92b6b0a3da1794a/charter-announcement-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"charter-announcement-1.jpg","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/why-the-office-isn-t-a-cure-for-loneliness/","name":"Why the Office Isn’t a Cure for Loneliness"}}]}] ```