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“If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.” That was the stark warning from Russian playwright and short-story writer, Anton Chekhov, but I’ve been married far too long to make the grave mistake of commenting on that little nugget of wisdom. However, he was also a practising doctor and he once said, “medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress”. Feeling on far safer territory now, perhaps he knew something then that employers are coming to realise now: loneliness in the workplace is an issue and, if not tackled, it will have a profound effect on workers’ mental and physical health, their productivity and, consequently, the bottom line.