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COVID19 is hopefully on its way into the past. Remote working, by contrast, looks increasingly like it’s here to stay, at least to some extent. Quite simply, it offers too many benefits to be ignored. It does, however, also bring challenges. Possibly the single, biggest one is to ensure workplace wellness for remote workers.

What is workplace wellness?

Workplace wellness is a bit like balance. It may be hard to describe, but you always know whether or not you have it. Workplace wellness is built on a sense of safety but goes further than that. It keeps employees energized, motivated and engaged. This feeds into productivity and a culture of continuous improvement.

The importance of safety

The importance of physical safety has been recognized for decades now. In fact, it still very much forms the backbone of traditional health-and-safety processes such as racking inspections. The importance of mental safety, by contrast, was ignored for many years. It is, however, now finally getting the sort of attention it deserves.

As remote workers are likely to be desk-based, physical safety is unlikely to be a huge issue for them. Obviously, they will need a proper, ergonomic office set-up. They are, however, not likely to need PPE or training on specialist equipment or procedures e.g. manual handling.

They may, however, need a lot of support to overcome the challenges of working in isolation. This is about more than just emotional loneliness, although that is certainly a risk. It’s also about the stress of not knowing where to go or who to ask for help when it is needed.

Both of these issues can be avoided by a combination of proactive management and effective self-service resources. Ideally, remote workers should also be given opportunities to socialize, at least virtually, with colleagues and the broader company.

Promoting physical health

Employers cannot force employees to take care of their personal health. They can, however, do their best to promote healthy living. What’s more, it’s often very much in their best interests to do so. Healthy employees have fewer absences and are both safer and more productive when they are at work.

In an office-based environment, employers can “push” initiatives out to employees. For example, they can organize healthy snacks and lunchtime exercise classes. This is obviously not practical for remote employees.  

There are, however, ways to work around this. For example, employees can post healthy snack boxes to remote workers. They can also live-stream exercise classes and perhaps offer incentives to participate. They could also work with partner companies to offer benefits where the employee is located, e.g. membership of a gym in their area.

Fostering mental wellness

This is probably the single, biggest challenge of delivering workplace wellness to remote workers. In the absence of office-based interaction, managers should check-in with their team regularly. Ideally, this should be through a video-call. This allows managers to compare what the employee is saying with what their eyes are seeing.
Additionally, employers should ensure that there are support channels all employees can access with or without their manager. For example, they might want to create a mental health first aid team.