The pioneering project pays employees one hour a month to meet friends, at a time when Sweden is experiencing a loneliness epidemic.
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 Lindberg45 years old, is one of 11 participants in the Friendcare pilot program, run by pharmaceutical group Apotek Hjärtat. He works in a company store in a shopping park in Kalmar, a small seaside town in southern Sweden.
“I’m very tired when I get home. I don’t have time or energy to meet my friends”, he explains, before refilling 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 monthduring work hours, to focus on strengthening your 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… one andpush to make me do things“, kneel Yasmine.
“I feel happier. You can’t live just on the internet like most people do these days.”
Financial support
Like all participants in the pilot project, Yasmine received 1000 Swedish kronor (around €92) 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 MagnussonCEO of Apotek Hjärtat, says the inspiration for the Friendcare project came, in part, from the company’s previous collaboration with mental health charity Mind. 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 your 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 title, Friendcare or “vänvård” in Swedish, is also a play on words with “health care“, 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 “wellness class“.
“It’s an adaptation of these ideas, but with a focus on loneliness and relationships”, explains Magnusson.
Apotek Hjärtat’s project comes at a time when Sweden’s right-wing coalition government is highlighting the issue of loneliness. In July, the Swedish 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.
The Minister of Health, Jakob Forssmeddescribed 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 be more aware of this, as something that affects health and also affects the economy“, diz o ministro Forssmed.
A national epidemic of loneliness? Research carried out for the European Union suggests that around 14% of the Swedish population states that she feels lonely some or all of the time, a little above the average in other European countries.
A separate study carried out by the state data agency Statistics Sweden in 2024 revealed that 8% of adults in Sweden they don’t have a single close friend.
Daniel Ecka 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 difficulty breaking the ice,” he says.
Housing in Sweden may also have a bearing on the matter, 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.
At 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-evaluation surveys carried out so far indicate higher levels of satisfaction with life among the participants, after they have entered the program.
Forssmed, the Minister of Health, is monitoring the pharmacy chain’s efforts.
“I find this very interesting and I am following what they are 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 the management of Forssmed in 2023.
The network includes around 20 big Nordic brandssuch as Ikea, Strawberry, a hotel chain, and HSB, the largest federation of housing cooperatives in Sweden, who come together to share their experiences and strategies to combat loneliness.
Magnusson states that there has already been “a lot of interest” in the Friendcare project from other companies in the network. Representatives from other companies even participated in the online training on loneliness offered by the pharmacy chain.
“It’s a different way of working collectively,” says Magnusson, “collaborating as companies in an area where we simply leaves the competition aside and instead tries to figure out how we can address this common obstacle.”
Earlier this month, a separate project was launched in Piteå, northern Sweden, with 20 companies offering well-being incentives for employees to participate in group cultural activitiessuch as concerts and plays, in an effort to increase well-being 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 it calls for more research and reflection on some of the possible structural issues that may also be affecting loneliness in the Nordic nation.
“What is happening in society that creates barriers for us to meet and connect? I think that’s an important thing to look at,” he says.
Ek points to the high unemployment rate in Sweden (8.7%), which increase in income inequality and the fact that young Swedes spend more time on digital devices than the average for 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.”
