Not all workplace loneliness is harmful: the mediating roles of wellbeing and job crafting in the relationship with employee performance

Workplace loneliness has long been treated as a universally negative experience, but a new study suggests this assumption may be overly simplistic. Research published in Frontiers in Organizational Psychology examined how two distinct types of workplace loneliness—emotional and social—affect employee performance, and whether wellbeing and job crafting mediate these relationships. The findings indicate that emotional loneliness has a significant negative effect on employee performance, while social loneliness is positively associated with performance in certain task-focused contexts.

The study, conducted by Orhan Balıkçı and colleagues, collected data from 756 accounting and finance professionals in the Marmara region of Türkiye. This professional environment was chosen because these positions frequently require concentration, analytical abilities, and prolonged focus on individual tasks, making them ideal for assessing whether certain types of social distance might operate differently than traditional beliefs suggest.

Workplace loneliness is defined as the distressing feeling that arises when employees perceive a gap between the social relationships they desire at work and those they experience. Traditional loneliness research differentiates between emotional loneliness, which reflects the absence of close, meaningful, and emotionally supportive relationships, and social loneliness, which refers to a lack of broader social integration, group belonging, or network embeddedness. Although these dimensions are theoretically distinct, organizational studies have rarely explored whether they lead to different outcomes in workplace settings.

The theoretical framework draws on Need to Belong Theory, which proposes that individuals have a fundamental need to establish meaningful, stable, and satisfying interpersonal relationships. From this perspective, emotional loneliness reflects a more fundamental deficit in the quality of relational bonds, whereas social loneliness primarily concerns the extent of integration into broader social networks. The study also employs Conservation of Resources theory, suggesting that individuals strive to obtain and preserve valuable resources such as emotional energy, interpersonal support, and social belonging. In situations where these resources are lacking, stress, burnout, and a decline in performance may occur.

Two particularly pertinent mechanisms are wellbeing and job crafting. Wellbeing encompasses employees’ positive psychological functioning, vitality, and overall mental health, all of which are closely linked to sustained performance. Job crafting refers to employees’ proactive efforts to redesign tasks, relationships, or perceptions of work to enhance their fit and motivation. Employees experiencing loneliness may experience declines in wellbeing and become less inclined to engage in adaptive job crafting behaviors, which may subsequently affect performance.

The data were analyzed using a multistep analytical approach. Descriptive statistics and reliability analyses were conducted using SPSS 21, followed by confirmatory factor analysis to examine the construct validity of the measurement model. Mediation analyses were conducted using the PROCESS macro for IBM SPSS Statistics, with bootstrapping procedures using 5,000 resamples to obtain robust estimates of indirect effects. A mediation effect was considered significant when the 95% bootstrap confidence interval for the indirect effect did not include zero.

The findings indicate that emotional loneliness had a significant negative effect on employee performance (β = −0.3569, t = −12.5998, p < 0.001). When wellbeing was included as a mediator, the explanatory power of the model increased from 17.39% to 27.46%. Wellbeing had a significant positive effect on employee performance (β = 0.5277, t = 15.6317, p < 0.001), while the direct effect of emotional loneliness became statistically insignificant, indicating full mediation. Similarly, when job crafting was included as a mediator, the model’s explanatory power increased to 29.12%, with job crafting having a significant positive effect on performance (β = 0.6047, t = 16.3605, p < 0.001) and the direct effect of emotional loneliness becoming insignificant, again indicating full mediation.

In contrast, social loneliness had a significant positive effect on employee performance (β = 0.0817, t = 3.6131, p < 0.001). When wellbeing was included as a mediator, the model’s explanatory power increased substantially to 35.29%. Both social loneliness (β = 0.1752, t = 9.5746, p < 0.001) and wellbeing (β = 0.4811, t = 16.4592, p < 0.001) had significant positive effects on performance, with the direct effect of social loneliness remaining significant, indicating partial mediation. The bootstrapping results confirmed that the indirect effect of social loneliness on performance through wellbeing was statistically significant (Effect = 0.0393, 95% CI [0.0110, 0.0730]). Similarly, when job crafting was included as a mediator, the model’s explanatory power increased to 36.69%, with both social loneliness (β = 0.1720, t = 9.4959, p < 0.001) and job crafting (β = 0.5670, t = 17.1305, p < 0.001) having significant positive effects, again indicating partial mediation.

The positive relationship between social loneliness and employee performance may appear counterintuitive, but it suggests that limited social embeddedness does not necessarily produce negative outcomes in all settings. In occupations such as accounting and finance, where sustained attention, analytical thinking, and individual task focus are important, lower levels of social interaction may reduce distractions and allow greater concentration on core responsibilities. However, these findings should be interpreted cautiously, as they do not imply that social loneliness is inherently beneficial, but rather that its consequences may depend on job design, task characteristics, and organizational context.

The study makes several significant theoretical contributions. It demonstrates the inadequacy of considering workplace loneliness as a unidimensional experience that produces similar outcomes in all circumstances. The distinction between emotional and social loneliness is both theoretically meaningful and empirically significant in the organizational context. The findings also strengthen the explanatory power of belongingness theory by emphasizing that loneliness is more closely connected to the quality of relationships than to their quantity. From a practical standpoint, managers should not regard workplace loneliness as a uniform problem affecting all employees in the same way. Organizations should focus not only on ensuring that employees are physically present within a team but also on enabling them to build meaningful relationships, feel supported, and develop a sense of belonging. Employee engagement programs should not be limited to social events or superficial team activities; mentoring programs, climates of psychological safety, inclusive leadership behaviors, and meaningful feedback mechanisms can be more effective tools for alleviating emotional loneliness. Additionally, instead of standard practices that force all employees into constant social interaction, managers should develop more flexible management approaches that consider task structure and individual work preferences. Creating organizational environments that support job crafting behavior—allowing employees to redesign their tasks, adapt their work methods, and exercise greater autonomy—can reduce the negative effects of loneliness and strengthen employee performance.

Subject of Research: Organizational Psychology

Article Title: Not all workplace loneliness is harmful: the mediating roles of wellbeing and job crafting in the relationship with employee performance

Article References: Balıkçı, O., Elçi, M., Kitapci, H., Artar, M., & Sener, I. (2026). Not all workplace loneliness is harmful: the mediating roles of wellbeing and job crafting in the relationship with employee performance. Frontiers in Organizational Psychology, 4, Article 1876048. https://doi.org/10.3389/forgp.2026.1876048

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/forgp.2026.1876048

Keywords: workplace loneliness, emotional loneliness, social loneliness, employee performance, wellbeing, job crafting, organizational psychology, workplace, loneliness, harmful, mediating, roles