I have spent the last 7 years travelling around the country talking about mental and physical wellbeing in the workplace.
Over the last few years, I’ve seen an increase in organisations promoting remote working. For some employee’s remote working at least two days a week is the new norm. One thing I’ve noticed however is that because it is a fairly new concept, it is not necessarily that well managed.
We now have the Coronavirus to contend with. More employees are being told to stay away from the workplace and work from home. I have a sneaky feeling that this outbreak may cause a little shift in the way we work over the long term and not just whilst the world deals with this outbreak.
With the constant media attention of the virus and our accessibility to this media, it can lead to an increase in anxiety which can become overwhelming. The health and safety of those close to us who are more vulnerable due to the outbreak, our finances and the world economy, when is it all going to end? The negative thoughts we have can spiral.
Work as always can be a great distraction and way to have a positive impact on our mental health. It gives us something to concentrate on other than the news. It gives us a purpose and helps with keeping a routine.
We can still do this from home but there are certain things we may wish to take into account:
- Connections, or at least the lack of them. One of the great things we get from going into work is the social side. The simple things like greeting colleagues in the morning, the chat over a brew, the ability to share the things that are going on in our lives.
- Lack of routine, I mentioned it before, but we tend to love routine. In work at a certain time, out of work at a certain time, lunch at a certain time.
- What does it look like (framework) from the managers point of view? What are the expectations and how are they set and met? Is the employee even able to remote work?
- What does it look like from the remote workers point of view? It’s not just up to the managers, the remote worker needs to take responsibility and make sure they communicate effectively with others. This could be via the phone or web based meetings.
Under the current climate where parents may be at home looking after children, working the normal hours would be tough to do. I know full well that when my children are at home working without being distracted is tough.
Even without the Coronavirus, remote working really isn’t the jolly I think some see it as, it brings up different issues for everyone concerned and as always needs to be managed well.
How is your organisation managing the wellbeing of your remote workers?
We now have our brilliant resilience and mental health trainings available via interactive webinars, including:
- Resilience for remote workers
- Managing remote working and mental health
- Mental health awareness
- Resilience for employees
- Resilience for managers
For more information on how you can help support your remote workers not only during the current climate but also for the long term please contact me via LinkedIn
