312. Remote Work Makes You Lonely, Should You Trust Your Gut or the Data, PLUS workplace surgery with Dr Jake Tuber

Welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network.

In this episode of This Week in Work, Al is joined by guest co-host Dr Jake Tuber as they dig into a landmark report on youth unemployment, a blockbuster NYT piece on remote work and loneliness, and whether you should ever trust your gut over the data.

• Connect with Dr Jake Tuber: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaketuber
• Subscribe to his newsletter: https://workwise.substack.com

📰 The News Round-Up

One Million Young People Locked Out of Work — The UK's NEET Crisis
A major government-commissioned report from former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn lays bare a structural failure in the UK's approach to youth employment. Around one million 16–24 year-olds are currently NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) — roughly one in eight — and that figure could hit 1.25 million by the early 2030s. Perhaps most striking: six in ten young NEETs have never held a single job, up from four in ten twenty years ago. The report also reveals that for every £25 spent on benefits for young people, just £1 is spent helping them back into work.

• Read the Milburn report coverage: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/28/a-record-of-failure-whats-in-the-first-part-of-alan-milburns-neet-report
• https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/may/27/neets-could-hit-125m-by-early-2030s-milburn-review-young-people-employment-uk

Is Remote Work Making Us Lonelier? A NYT Deep Dive
A new study published in Science tracked workers in remote-eligible roles — finance, software engineering and the like — and found they're working from home three times more than five years ago, and reporting significantly higher loneliness. But Stanford remote work researcher Nick Bloom urges caution: does remote work cause distress, or do people already under stress seek out remote work to cope? Dr Jake unpacks why the headline conclusions may be overstated.

• Read the NYT piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/opinion/remote-work-depression.html
• Read the original study: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec7671

🧠 Truth or Lie: Is Gut Instinct Better Than Data?

Dr Jake takes on one of the oldest debates in decision-making — and delivers a verdict with a twist.

• The case for data: Decades of research, including a seminal 1954 study by Meehl and two major meta-analyses (Grove et al., 2000; Ægisdóttir et al., 2006), consistently show that analytical, statistical approaches outperform gut instinct on important decisions.
• The case for gut: When someone is a genuine expert in a stable, predictable environment with good feedback loops, intuition can reflect deep tacit knowledge — not guesswork.
• The verdict: It's a false binary. Your gut is partly made of data — years of pattern recognition your brain has processed unconsciously. The best decisions let intuition generate hypotheses and evidence test them.

🏥 The Workplace Surgery

• "My star player has become my biggest headache" — A brilliant employee has started missing deadlines, pushing back on everything, and dismissing feedback. She says she's been carrying the team for years. Do you owe her more patience, or have you already been too patient?
• "Why does returning to work feel harder than the work itself?" — Every time this listener takes time off, re-entry feels brutal — even though they actually enjoy their job. Is this psychological, or just a "them" problem?
• "Why is my team working hours I never asked for?" — Fully flexible, no core hours, work gets done. So why are people sending emails at 7am and Slack messages on weekends — and should their manager be more worried than they are?

🎙️ Coming Thursday

We're joined by Mike Harle — the man who told Jimmy Carr to quit his corporate job and pursue comedy. He managed Jimmy at Shell, had the conversation that changed everything, and has some brilliant management stories to share. Don't miss it.

📬 Connect with Al & Leanne – LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/truthlieswork⁠ – Al Elliott: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/thisisalelliott⁠ – Leanne Elliott: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetleanne⁠ – Email: hello@truthliesandwork.com – Book a call: ⁠https://savvycal.com/meetleanne/chat⁠

Mental health support UK & ROI — Samaritans Call 116 123 or visit ⁠https://www.samaritans.org⁠ UK — Mind Call 0300 123 3393 or visit ⁠https://www.mind.org.uk⁠ US — Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Call or text 988 or visit ⁠https://988lifeline.org⁠ Australia — Lifeline Call 13 11 14 or visit ⁠https://www.lifeline.org.au⁠ Global helplines ⁠https://findahelpline.com⁠