Swedish loneliness experiment that pays people to take ‘friend time’ at work

Pharmacist Yasmine Lindberg fights loneliness BBC Employees at a large pharmacy chain in Sweden are being given paid leave to spend time with friends, at a time when the government is asking companies to help combat loneliness. Yasmine Lindberg, 45, is one of 11 participants in the Friendcare pilot program, run by pharmaceutical group Apotek Hjärtat. She works at a company store in a business park in Kalmar, a small seaside town in southern Sweden. “I’m really tired when I get home. I don’t have time or energy to meet my friends,” she explains, before restocking a shelf of paracetamol. Yasmine spends much of her free time with her teenage children, who stay with her every two weeks. But she admits to feeling “quite lonely” since separating from her partner four years ago, which has led to fewer social invitations with couples in her network of friends. Now, thanks to Apotek Hjärtat’s pilot program, which began in April, Yasmine is entitled to 15 minutes a week, or an hour a month, during working hours, to focus on strengthening her friendships or making new connections. She can use this time to talk on the phone, make plans over text, or meet with someone in person. “I wanted to make things better for myself…a push to make me do things,” says Yasmine. “I feel happier. You can’t live just on the internet like most people do nowadays.” Financial support Like all participants in the pilot project, Yasmine received 1,000 SEK (R$600) from Apotek Hjärtat to help pay for friendship-boosting activities during the one-year trial period. Volunteers also received online training on how to recognize and deal with loneliness, which the pharmacy chain made available to all of its 4,000 employees across Sweden. Monica Magnusson, CEO of Apotek Hjärtat, says the inspiration for the Friendcare project came, in part, from the company’s previous collaboration with mental health charity Mind. According to her, this partnership helped show that short, meaningful conversations between pharmacists and customers can make those customers feel less isolated. The company wanted to test whether providing a brief period of time set aside for friendship among its employees could also impact their well-being. Program volunteers could also sign up if they didn’t feel lonely but wanted to spend more time with friends. “We try to see what the effects are of having the opportunity to dedicate a little time every week to your relationships,” explains Magnusson. The project’s title, Friendcare or “vänvård” in Swedish, is also a play on words with “friskvård”, a benefit already offered by many Swedish companies, which give employees a tax-free annual amount to spend on physical activities or massages. Some also offer employees a weekly wellness hour called “friskvårdstimme.” “It’s an adaptation of these ideas, but with a focus on loneliness and relationships,” explains Magnusson. Monica Magnusson, head of Swedish pharmacy chain Apotek Hjärtat, says the friendship-boosting program appears to be having a positive impact on participants BBC The Apotek Hjärtat project comes at a time when Sweden’s right-wing coalition government is shining a spotlight on the issue of loneliness. In July, Sweden’s Public Health Agency released the country’s first national strategy aimed at minimizing loneliness, commissioned by the government. An essential part of the strategy is increased collaboration between the business community, municipalities, researchers and civil society. Health Minister Jakob Forssmed has described loneliness as a major public health concern, citing global research linking the problem to an increased risk of diseases, including coronary heart disease and stroke, and a greater likelihood of early mortality. Companies should be concerned about this issue, he says, as their employees and customers are at risk, and public finances are affected by the costs of healthcare and sick leave related to loneliness. “We need to have greater awareness about this, as something that affects health and also affects the economy”, says Minister Forssmed. A national epidemic of loneliness? A survey carried out for the European Union suggests that around 14% of the Swedish population say they feel lonely some or all of the time, slightly above the average for other European countries. A separate study carried out by state data agency Statistics Sweden in 2024 revealed that 8% of adults in Sweden do not have a single close friend. Daniel Ek, a Swedish psychologist and co-author of The Power of Friendship, a manual on how to develop deeper relationships, argues that in Sweden, the country’s cold, dark winters can discourage people from socializing in addition to cultural factors. “The Swedish mentality is like this: you shouldn’t bother others. We value personal space a lot and have a hard time breaking the ice,” he says. Housing in Sweden may also play a role, suggests Ek. More than 40% of homes are occupied by just one person, and a report released in July by the Swedish Public Health Agency indicated that there are higher levels of loneliness among this group. Yasmine Lindberg has gained a little more time to connect with others BBC At the Apotek Hjärtat headquarters in Stockholm, Magnusson says it is still too early to decide whether the Friendcare project will be expanded, but the results of self-assessment surveys carried out so far indicate higher levels of life satisfaction among participants once they have entered the program. Forssmed, the Minister of Health, is following the pharmacy chain’s efforts. “I think this is really interesting and I’m following what they’re doing,” he says. “[Mas] I’m not going to promise that the government will expand this or give tax deductions or anything like that.” Apotek Hjärtat is also part of a business network called “Together against involuntary loneliness”, created under Forssmed in 2023. The network includes around 20 major Nordic brands, such as Ikea, Strawberry, a hotel chain, and HSB, the largest federation of housing cooperatives in Sweden, which meet to share their experiences and strategies to combat loneliness. Magnusson says that there has already been “a lot of interest” in the Friendcare project from other companies in the chain. Representatives from other companies have even participated in the online training on loneliness offered by the pharmacy chain. Forssmed, says it is closely monitoring pharmacy chain Apotek Hjärtat AFF’s friendship-boosting program via Getty Images Earlier this month, a separate project was launched in Piteå, northern Sweden, with 20 companies offering wellbeing incentives for employees to take part in group cultural activities, such as concerts and plays, in an effort to increase wellbeing and improve social inclusion Ek, the psychologist, agrees that this type of initiative. can have a positive impact by helping to “lower the threshold” for greater social interaction, which in turn can pave the way for deeper friendships and reduced levels of loneliness. But he calls for more research and reflection on some of the possible structural issues that may also be affecting loneliness in the Nordic nation. I think this is an important thing to look at,” he says. Ek points to Sweden’s high unemployment rate (8.7%), rising income inequality and the fact that young Swedes spend more time on digital devices than the average across the 27 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Income differences are important. Having events and places to go is important. The way we build cities is important,” says Ek. “Therefore, it is important to analyze these structures to develop a plan for the future.”

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