Swedish employees trial ‘friendship hour’ to fight loneliness | EUROtoday

Staff at a significant Swedish pharmacy chain are being given paid day off to spend with associates, as Sweden’s authorities calls on companies to assist play a task in tackling loneliness.

Yasmine Lindberg, 45, is certainly one of 11 individuals participating within the pilot “friendcare” scheme for the pharmacy group Apotek Hjärtat.

She works shifts on the firm’s outlet at a retail park in Kalmar, a small seaside metropolis in southern Sweden.

“I’m really tired when I go home. I don’t have time or energy to meet my friends,” she explains, earlier than restocking a shelf of paracetamol.

Yasmine spends plenty of her free time together with her teenage youngsters who reside together with her each different week. But she admits feeling “quite lonely” since separating from her companion 4 years in the past, which led to fewer social invites with {couples} of their community.

Now, because of the Apotek Hjärtat pilot scheme, which began in April, she’s granted quarter-hour per week, or an hour a month throughout working hours to deal with strengthening her friendships or making new connections.

She can use this allotted friendcare time to talk on the cellphone, make plans over textual content, or meet up with somebody in individual.

“I wanted to make it better for myself… like, kick myself in the back to do stuff,” says Yasmine.

“I feel happier. You can’t live through the internet like most people do these days.”

Like all individuals within the pilot undertaking, she has been given 1,000 kronor ($100; £80) by Apotek Hjärtat to assist pay for friendship-based actions in the course of the year-long trial.

The volunteers have additionally obtained on-line coaching in the right way to recognise and sort out loneliness, which the pharmacy chain has made out there for all its 4,000 workers throughout Sweden.

Monica Magnusson, Apotek Hjärtat’s CEO, says the inspiration for the corporate’s friendcare undertaking comes partly from a earlier collaboration with the psychological well being charity Mind. She says that helped reveal how quick significant conversations between pharmacists and prospects may assist the latter group really feel much less remoted.

The firm wished to check if offering a brief quantity of ring-fenced friendship time for its workers may additionally affect their wellbeing.

Volunteers may additionally join in the event that they weren’t lonely, however wished to spend extra time with remoted folks of their community.

“We try and see what the effects are from having the opportunity to spend a bit of time every week on safeguarding your relationships,” explains Ms Magnusson.

The undertaking’s title, friendcare or “vänvård” in Swedish can also be a wordplay on “friskvård”, a profit already supplied by many Swedish companies, who give workers a tax-free annual wellness allowance to spend on health actions or massages. Some Swedish firms additionally supply employees a weekly wellness hour referred to as “friskvårdstimme”.

“This is a reflection on that, but targeting loneliness and relationships instead,” explains Ms Magnusson.

Apotek Hjärtat’s undertaking comes as Sweden’s right-wing coalition authorities is placing the highlight on loneliness. In July, Sweden’s Public Health Agency launched Sweden’s first nationwide technique aimed toward minimising loneliness, commissioned by the federal government.

A core a part of the technique is elevated collaboration between the enterprise group, municipalities, researchers and civil society. Health Minister Jakob Forssmed has described loneliness as main public well being concern, citing international analysis linking the issue to an elevated threat of sicknesses together with coronary coronary heart illness and strokes, and a higher chance of early mortality.

Businesses needs to be frightened about it, he suggests, since their workers and prospects are in danger, and public funds are impacted by healthcare and sick go away prices linked to loneliness.

“We need to… have a greater awareness about this, that this is something that really affects health, and affects [the] economy as well,” says Forssmed.

A nationwide loneliness epidemic? Research for the EU suggests round 14% of Sweden’s inhabitants report feeling lonely some or all the time, barely greater than the EU common.

A separate examine for the state’s number-crunching company Statistics Sweden in 2024 discovered that 8% of adults in Sweden haven’t got a single shut pal.

Daniel Ek, a Swedish psychologist and co-author of The Power of Friendship, a handbook on the right way to develop deeper relationships, argues that in Sweden the nation’s chilly, darkish winters can discourage folks from socialising, alongside cultural components.

“The Swedish mentality is like – you shouldn’t disturb others. We value personal space a lot, and we have a hard time breaking the ice,” he says. Sweden’s housing can also play a task, Ek suggests.

More than 40% of houses are occupied by only one individual, and a July’s report by Sweden’s Public Health Agency indicated there are greater ranges of loneliness amongst this group.

At Apotek Hjärtat’s headquarters in Stockholm, Ms Magnusson says it’s too quickly to resolve whether or not the friendcare undertaking is rolled out extra extensively, however the outcomes of self-assessment surveys to date point out greater ranges of life satisfaction amongst individuals on the friendcare scheme, in comparison with earlier than it began.

Forssmed, the Health Minister, is monitoring the pharmacy chain’s efforts.

“I think this is very interesting and I’m following what they’re doing,” he says. “[But] I’m not going to give you any promises that the government is going to scale this up or give a tax deduction or something like that.”

Apotek Hjärtat can also be a part of a enterprise community referred to as ‘Together in opposition to involuntary loneliness’, initiated by Forssmed in 2023.

It contains round 20 main Nordic manufacturers, comparable to Ikea, Strawberry, a hospitality chain, and HSB, Sweden’s greatest federation of cooperative housing, who meet to share their experiences and techniques for tackling loneliness.

Ms Magnusson says there has already been “a lot of interest” within the friendcare undertaking from the opposite companies within the community. Representatives from the opposite corporations have even participated within the pharmacy chain’s on-line loneliness coaching.

“It’s quite a different approach to working together,” says Ms Magnusson, “collaborating as companies in an area where you just let competition go, and instead try and figure out ‘how can we tackle this common obstacle that we have?’.”

Earlier this month, a separate undertaking launched in Piteå in northern Sweden, with 20 companies providing wellness grants for workers to attend group cultural experiences, comparable to live shows and performs, in an effort to spice up wellbeing and enhance social inclusion.

Mr Ek, the psychologist, agrees these types of initiatives can have a constructive affect in serving to “lower the threshold” to elevated social interplay, which in flip, can pave the best way for deeper friendships and decreased ranges of loneliness.

But he’s calling for extra analysis and reflection on a number of the potential structural points that will even be impacting loneliness within the Nordic nation.

“What is happening in society that makes us have to have those lower thresholds for meeting and connecting? I think that’s an important thing to look at,” he says. Mr Ek factors to Sweden’s excessive unemployment price (8.7%), rising revenue inequality, and younger Swedes spending extra time on digital units than the typical throughout the 27-member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

“Income differences matter. Availability to events and places matter. How we build cities matters,” says Mr Ek. “So those structures are important to look at to work out the plan for the future.”