Managing the Well-Being of Your Remote Employees

Working for a longer workweek span, engaging in more low-quality meetings, and doing higher levels of multitasking relate to worse results universally. Typically, more after-hours work increases engagement but does not affect productivity and quality. Besides, a rise in focus hours propels work outcomes but not engagement. These findings from a large-scale study of over 1000 remote employees by Vitality, a wellness and financial services firm, suggest collaboration in a remote work environment can corrode the work-life boundaries, worsening employee burnout and mental well-being in the long run. This calls for taking care of your remote employees’ health.

What to do for the welfare of your remote workers?

Set Boundaries Between Work and Personal Lives

Encourage your remote employees to create boundaries between their personal and work lives. As a manager, show your people that you trust them and motivate them to set their work limits. Communicate to individuals and teams how important work-life balance is. People working in an organization should feel free when they switch off at the end of their working day. At home, your employees are urged to check emails or engage in this or that work. Check in with them to find out if they are suffering from high-stress levels and thus unable to switch off.

Listen to What Your Employees Want to Say and Can’t Say

Maintaining a strong employee-employer relationship in a remote space is difficult. But having 1-on-1s with your direct reports is crucial, and they come to you without discomfort. Schedule one-on-one conversations with your team members; they could be audio or video calls. Employee experience platforms enable you to arrange a 1-on-1 meeting. You must check in on your direct reports every week or once in two weeks. If you already do that, are these 1-on-1 meetings recurring enough to keep your team members happy and content? Such conversations give you insights into how they are feeling day-to-day. They may mention if they feel pressure or anxiety of some sort. Listen effectively to their concerns and what they say, and what they can’t yell out. Only then you can check on their well-being. During 1-on-1s, you may discuss with your direct reports how they progress on their goals and if they encounter any challenges. They may be burning out or facing high-stress levels. You must build trust between you and your team members. They will thus feel more comfortable and reassured to speak to you openly.

Provide “Duvet Days”

Keeping in mind the well-being of your employees working remotely, providing them with a few “duvet days” in a year is a good deal. Your remote workers may be stressed or undergoing a period of decreased mental well-being while at work. Working from home, they may not want to take sick leave. But, when you offer duvet days to your employees, they are guilt-free and like to enjoy this personal time to relax and rejuvenate. As they return to work, they will be more motivated and energized. Trusted and valued by their organization, such employees become highly engaged and don’t plan to switch.

Allow Employees to Work Anytime, Anywhere

When you offer choices to your employees or let them control their work schedules, it is good for their mental health. If you are thinking about how employees working with one another will coordinate, working in different shifts, give them time schedules common to more people. Doing so will resolve the problem of team collaboration and communication. Employing a remote work tool also enables everyone to see who is working on what. Regarding an extensive work redesign at a Fortune 500 company, IT employees were given complete control of when and where they wished to work. They collaborated with the members of their team and those of others to take care of the needed coordination. Doing so led to their physical and mental well-being and a good employee retention rate.

Let Employees Recognize and Solve Problems at the Workplace

It works great for your employees and the organization when you allow them to participate in workplace improvements. After all, they better know the problems at the organization, and if issues are tackled the way they want, it will be easy and fun to combat challenges. Lay down a structured process of recognizing and addressing problems in the workplace. This way, you will find a rise in job satisfaction and a reduced employee burnout rate. Besides, employees are less likely to leave when given a chance to resolve problems at the workplace.

Are you doing your bit for your employee well-being?

If you are, it’s great! If you aren’t working toward your employees’ well-being, you must gear up, or you will lose them. You may adopt the ways mentioned above to care for your remote employees or do something more for their benefit. Recognize and reward them or provide them access to courses for their career advancement. You can thus keep them engaged, productive, and happy.