There are plenty of things you should look after when running your own company. While you need to ensure you can provide the best services that satisfy your customers, you also need to look after your team members’ wellbeing. A happy employee is a productive employee, their careers making them feel better about their work and produce quality output.  

As you look after your team members’ welfare, you need to ensure they’re happy and have the full capacity to work effectively. In this way, you’re practicing one of the best employee retention strategies since they’ll enjoy working for you. 

However, if they’re working remotely, it might be difficult since you don’t physically see and know what’s going because you cannot read their faces. With that, listed below are the ways to look after your remote employees’ wellbeing:  

• Watch out for Employee Burnout

Just because a team member is working from home doesn’t mean they’re robots that don’t get tired or experience burnout. When an employee is working too much for the day, and has been practicing the same thing for weeks or months, they might feel a little burned out. A time will come when they don’t enjoy their work at all.  

Signs Of Burnout:  

• Frequent Illnesses 
• Decreased Performance 
• Increased Mistakes 
• Speaking Dull  

When you notice that your employee is experiencing any of those extensively, you should reach out to them and ask them how you could help. If they refuse, try to look for ways to make them feel better and take care of their wellbeing.  

• Provide Enough Personal Time 

Even if your employees are working remotely, it doesn’t mean they don’t need time for themselves. Yes, they might be working in the comforts of their own home. But they might not be able to do the things they usually do because all of their hours are focused on work. With that said, you shouldn’t forget that your employees also need personal time. It’s better not to ask for all their hours to be put into projects they have with you.  

For your remote employees, ensure you only allow them to work during their hours. And they should be turning off their computers at the end of the day, including weekends. Unless it’s urgent, try not to ask your employees to work on weekends. Just allow them to enjoy the rest of the day off. If it can wait until Monday, do so, and avoid overworking them.  

• Encourage Breaks 

When working remotely, it may be easier to work for eight hours straight as you can just eat your lunch right from your desk. While it’s feasible, you should always encourage your employees to take breaks so they can have a little time for themselves. 

Unless your team member’s work is time-sensitive, you should promote flexibility where they can take their lunch breaks, allowing them to step away when they’re too overwhelmed with work.  

Since your employees work remotely, you can’t see them leave their desks and head to the panty. With that said, you can just ask them to set their status on their instant messenger, indicating they’re on a break, allowing you to know they’re out of their desk. With regular time off during the day, they will feel refreshed and be more productive with their day at work.  

• Check In Regularly  

One effective way you can know what’s happening with your remote team member is by checking up on them individually, and see what’s going on. In this way, you’ll know if they’re experiencing any life changes that need a few work adjustments and support. 

For maximum effectiveness, it would be helpful if you could call them for the day through a video call on a weekly or bi-weekly basis just to get an update about their life.  

As you check in with your employees, try to keep the conversation light as much as possible. It would be great if you could skip the business talk and focus more on personal conversations. You can just have a quick check-up to see how things are at work, and if they’re experiencing any challenges. 

When your employees are opening up to you, it’s important that you listen carefully. Show them you care and provide help whenever possible. Along with this, it would be great if you could bring up your past conversation on the next call, as your employee will highly appreciate that you remember everything they said, despite your busy schedule.  

• Offer Various Activities 

Since your employees are only staying at their homes for the longest time, and the only time they get out would probably be at the end of the day or during the weekends, they probably can’t do some fun activities by themselves or with their family or friends. Once in a while, it would be great to have fun at work, where they could hang with their co-workers and play great online games.  

Ideally, set up a fun day at your company wherein they need to take an hour off from work just to play and have fun. During this hour, look for online games everyone can participate in. If you have a larger number of employees, you should encourage them to play by their department to get closer to one another. In this way, the games would also be easier to manage and organise.  

• Set Realistic Goals 

Remote working can result in two things, an overworked employee who keeps on pushing and pushing just to provide the best results, or an unmotivated employee who’ll work however they think fits well. 

To allow your employees to create the perfect balance, set a realistic goal that they need to achieve at the end of the day. In this way, they can feel motivated and avoid overworking themselves, especially if they already reached their goals.  

When setting goals for your employees, try to keep them realistic as much as possible. While the added challenge might sound interesting and fun, it might cause burnout to your employees, making the goals tedious rather than motivating. You can begin by setting their goals from their past metrics or results, and try to work from there gradually.  

Moreover, check with your employees and see whether or not their goals are working for them, and if they need any adjustments. However, ensure employees are still productive, and have an attainable goal that can still help your company and the bottom line.  

Conclusion  

Your remote employees’ wellbeing is highly important, and managers shouldn’t just look past it. When they overwork themselves, they might not feel motivated to get up in the morning to do their work. 

By providing the perfect balance and encouragement, you’re helping your employees be happy with what they do, and hopefully even love it. With that said, always try to be supportive and open to suggestions as much as possible.  

Jill Brown is a Senior HR Consultant from Florida. She’s been in the industry for 10 years. She shares her knowledge through webinars and writing blog posts online. During her free time, she enjoys cycling, cooking, and yoga.