{"id":7053315,"date":"2026-09-01T02:19:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T02:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/loneliness-disengagement-poor-productivity-one-problem-not-three-graeme-cowan\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T02:19:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T02:19:42","slug":"loneliness-disengagement-poor-productivity-one-problem-not-three-graeme-cowan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053315","title":{"rendered":"Loneliness, disengagement, poor productivity: one problem, not three | Graeme Cowan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Most organisations treat these as three separate issues<\/strong>. Wellbeing owns loneliness. HR owns engagement. Operations owns productivity. Three different reports, three different owners, three different fixes.<\/p>\n<p>Two major research reports released this year suggest that\u2019s the wrong way to see it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Too many ineffective meetings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>EnterpriseWorks\u2019 2026 Workforce Productivity Report found that 45% of the average work week is now spent in meetings, with only 44% of people believing most of them actually move work forward. Manager engagement has dropped further and faster in the past year than at any point on record, while leaders spend nearly 20 hours a week in meetings, 70% more than their teams, and report the highest levels of rework of anyone in the organisation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>One in two feel lonely<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ending Loneliness Together\u2019s State of the Nation 2026 report, released separately, found that one in two Australians report some form of loneliness or social isolation. People who are both lonely and socially isolated are nearly six times more likely to experience depression. And the single biggest driver of that risk isn\u2019t circumstance, it\u2019s frequency: infrequent contact with the people around us increases the risk of disconnection by almost 18 times.<\/p>\n<p>Read side by side, these two reports are describing the same organisation from two different angles. Workplaces have become busier and more fragmented, filled with more coordination and less real contact. That same fragmentation is what\u2019s driving disconnection nationally. We\u2019re managing more interactions than ever and having fewer real ones, and the cost shows up as depression risk in one report and lost productivity in the other. It\u2019s not three problems sitting next to each other. It\u2019s one problem, measured three different ways.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Managers overwhelmed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Left unaddressed, this compounds. Disengaged managers can\u2019t sustain the presence their teams need. Teams that don\u2019t feel genuinely connected disengage further. And organisations that keep assigning loneliness, engagement and productivity to different owners will keep solving none of them properly, because the fix for one is largely the fix for all three.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Real conversations change everything<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The research is consistent on what that fix looks like: regular, quality contact between people, protected time for real conversation, and leaders who model care rather than just monitor output. None of it requires a major overhaul. It requires building connection into how teams already work, deliberately, rather than leaving it to chance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A conversation worth having in October<\/strong><strong> for <\/strong><strong>Mental Health Month\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>This is exactly the conversation worth having this Mental Health Month<\/strong>, not as three separate initiatives, but as one. If it would help to bring this research, and a practical way forward, into your organisation this October, whether through a keynote, or proven eLearning that builds a culture of care and belonging, I\u2019d welcome the conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Graeme Cowan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Graeme is a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/graemecowan.com.au\/speaking\/\">keynote speaker<\/a>\u00a0who helps leaders build resilient and successful teams, without losing good people to burnout. He is also a founding director of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ruok.org.au\/\">R U OK?<\/a>\u00a0and host of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wecare365.com.au\/podcast\/\">The Caring CEO podcast<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 rated #2 globally in workplace mental health. His new Wiley book is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com.au\/Great-Leaders-Care-Developing-Successful\/dp\/1394389337\">\u201cGREAT LEADER\u2019S CARE: Developing safe, resilient, and successful teams\u201d<\/a>,\u00a0and he co-founded\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wecare365.com.au\/\">WeCARE365\u00a0<\/a>which produces customised and practical eLearning, to help managers have better burnout prevention\u00a0conversations<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most organisations treat these as three separate issues. Wellbeing owns loneliness. HR owns engagement. Operations owns productivity. Three different reports, three different owners, three different fixes. Two major research reports released this year suggest that\u2019s the wrong way to see it. Too many ineffective meetings EnterpriseWorks\u2019 2026 Workforce Productivity Report found that 45% of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7053316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183783,115442,98079,144096],"tags":[183785,115448,183786,215657,94856,196569,62591,5596,4106,18635],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7053315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mentalhealthspeaker-resiliencespeaker-leadershipspeaker-psychologicalsafetyspeaker","category-culture-leadership","category-general","category-leadership-resilience-speaker","tag-mentalhealthspeaker-resiliencespeaker-leadershipspeaker-psychologicalsafetyspeaker","tag-cowan","tag-culture-leadership","tag-disengagement","tag-graeme","tag-leadership-resilience-speaker","tag-loneliness","tag-poor","tag-problem","tag-productivity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Loneliness, disengagement, poor productivity: one problem, not three | Graeme Cowan - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053315\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Loneliness, disengagement, poor productivity: one problem, not three | Graeme Cowan - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Most organisations treat these as three separate issues. Wellbeing owns loneliness. HR owns engagement. Operations owns productivity. Three different reports, three different owners, three different fixes. Two major research reports released this year suggest that\u2019s the wrong way to see it. Too many ineffective meetings EnterpriseWorks\u2019 2026 Workforce Productivity Report found that 45% of the [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053315\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-01T02:19:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Loneliness.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1379\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"752\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053315#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053315\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b85e3c3dc0e1daea076524dc8810c371\"},\"headline\":\"Loneliness, disengagement, poor productivity: one problem, not three | Graeme Cowan\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-01T02:19:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053315\"},\"wordCount\":548,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053315#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Loneliness.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"#mentalhealthspeaker #resiliencespeaker #leadershipspeaker #psychologicalsafetyspeaker\",\"Cowan\",\"Culture Leadership\",\"disengagement\",\"Graeme\",\"Leadership Resilience Speaker\",\"Loneliness\",\"Poor\",\"Problem\",\"Productivity\"],\"articleSection\":[\"#mentalhealthspeaker #resiliencespeaker #leadershipspeaker #psychologicalsafetyspeaker\",\"Culture Leadership\",\"General\",\"Leadership Resilience Speaker\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053315#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053315\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053315\",\"name\":\"Loneliness, disengagement, poor productivity: one problem, not three | Graeme Cowan - 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