{"id":912,"date":"2020-05-05T14:09:26","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T04:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sage-people-scraping-ca.local\/?p=912"},"modified":"2023-12-15T02:33:06","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T15:33:06","slug":"5-ways-support-working-from-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/5-ways-support-working-from-home\/","title":{"rendered":"5 ways to support employee wellbeing remotely"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPeople & Leadership<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t5 ways to support employee wellbeing remotely\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\"Headshot\t\t\t\tCharlotte Penny<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In the last few weeks, you\u2019ve probably grown more adept at remote working than you ever thought possible. However, it\u2019s likely you\u2019ve noticed that some employees will be struggling in their own ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s how to support your remote workers, wherever they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s time to focus on remote employees\u2019 wellbeing<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Working remotely has many perks. It offers employees greater freedom, helps them to simplify their lives, stay closer to friends and family, and can even help them to feel more inspired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, a lack of fixed routine can leave some employees feeling lost and forgotten. The reduction of social contact with colleagues can cause them to experience loneliness and without access to the office environment, they may find it harder to find the support they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, many employees may also be managing childcare at home fulltime alongside working, care duties, or home schooling. For younger employees in house shares, they may struggle to find the physical space to work effectively and productively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prioritising your employees\u2019 wellbeing is vital. Research has consistently proven a strong correlation between employee wellbeing and productivity, as well as improved employee retention and even customer loyalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While employee wellbeing should always be high up on HR\u2019s agenda, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic it\u2019s more important than ever to ensure your employees are feeling supported while working from home.  Here are five things you can do to make them feel supported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Free research report: The changing face of HR <\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Seismic shifts in the way organisations operate, work, and manage their people are occurring. We surveyed 500+ HR leaders to discover how they are responding.<\/p>\n

Uncover insights on how to stay ahead and transform HR from a process focused function to a people driven business.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDownload Report<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n

1. Put wellbeing at the top of the HR agenda<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If your employees start to feel demotivated, stressed or anxious, it can be hard for them to reach out for support. By taking a proactive approach and putting their mental wellbeing front and center, you can encourage them to speak up when they\u2019re not feeling their best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can be as simple as gently nudging your employees to get in touch if they are experiencing mental health issues and offering personalised support to those staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Allow flexible working<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You might think: aren\u2019t remote workers already <\/em>working flexibly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a difference between working from home and working flexibly. Fully flexible working means having complete control over when and how you work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your employees may find that whilst working from home they would like to space their working hours out, compress them into fewer days or work irregular patterns in order to free up time in other parts of the day or week. This can also support employees managing childcare and other care responsibilities at home also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changing schedules can help your employees to maximise their own time for mental wellbeing. Even if they only choose to work flexibly in the short-term, having extra windows of non-working time could help them to take care of matters in their personal lives that will help them to feel less stressed
and more focused during working hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Offering your people this flexibility shouldn\u2019t impact on your business\u2019s schedule and may even help employees to reach deadlines more efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Promote switching off<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Remote employees may feel like they live at the office rather than work from home, so it\u2019s vital that they switch off to deter from stress and ultimately, burnout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re notoriously not good at it, however. Nearly a third <\/a>of remote employees say that they can\u2019t switch off in their personal time and two-fifths say they check their work phone or emails at least five times a day outside of their working hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While controversial, you could impose an email and call embargo between set hours. However, this option may not be quite so easy for international organisations or employees in senior positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could also seek out managers who are great at switching off and offer up tips to the wider team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever you do, it\u2019s important to not only communicate the importance of colleagues switching off, but practice this across your team and organisation too. If senior managers lead from the top, then it will be easier for employees to reflect this approach too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Encourage conversation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Loneliness and social isolation are the second biggest challenge faced by employees working from home after \u201cunplugging\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, it\u2019s important to help staff feel as connected as possible during their working days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To do this, make sure employees have access to the latest videoconferencing software and encourage them to use it as much as possible. Video conferences can often prove more efficient than emails and will help employees to enjoy moments of feeling connected when appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, be mindful that conference video fatigue can become an issue for remote workers. So, encourage employees to connect via video only when it really matters so employees don\u2019t feel burned out by long or many video calls each day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Face-to-face interaction is especially important because it allows the parties in a conversation to pick up on signals that may otherwise be missed in an email. Tone of voice, eye contact and body language are easy to underestimate, but can contribute greatly to understanding and good communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Encourage line managers to check in with their direct reports more frequently too, so that every employee feels supported and has opportunities to ask questions and discuss any concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Host company socials online<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Regular social interactions can improve happiness, health, engagement and loyalty, and even reduce stress, according to Forbes<\/a>. However, it can be hard to fit social interactions in during the day, so a fantastic way to bookend the working week is to host work socials online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can include coffee break style catch-ups, planned \u2018water cooler\u2019 chats or just general check-in calls and afternoon socials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These occasions allow staff to catch up with managers and other colleagues, to interact in a casual setting and to feel more at home \u2013 even while they are isolated from their fellow employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make employees feel even more involved, you can think of fun ways to bring these sessions to life. Why not try a quiz or ask staff working from home to come up with wacky costumes? This can be a great way to bring your company culture to life even while employees are away from the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Support your people in the right way<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With remote workers, a lack of employee wellbeing might not be so easy to spot. However, it\u2019s no less important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting workforce wellbeing in a good place could prevent stress from escalating into much more serious mental health issues, helping your workers to be happier and healthier in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Free research report: The changing face of HR <\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Seismic shifts in the way organisations operate, work, and manage their people are occurring. We surveyed 500+ HR leaders to discover how they are responding.<\/p>\n

Uncover insights on how to stay ahead and transform HR from a process focused function to a people driven business.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDownload Report<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Subscribe to the Sage Advice Newsletter<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Get a roundup of our best business advice in your inbox every month<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If your employees are adapting to life working from home, they will need your support more than ever. Here are 5 ways to help people feel cared for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1660,"featured_media":3001,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sage_video":false,"post_featured_image_hide":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[222],"business_type":[9],"context":[],"industry":[],"persona":[103],"imagine_tag":[261,65,263,25,40,264],"coauthors":[284],"class_list":["post-912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people-leadership","tag-hr","business_type-medium-sized-business"],"sage_meta":{"region":"en-au","author_name":"Charlotte Penny","featured_image":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1180387443.jpg","imagine_tags":{"261":"Employee engagement","65":"HR and Payroll","263":"HR processes","25":"HR software","40":"Mid-sized business","264":"Top HR resources"}},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Sage Advice Australia","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1660"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/3001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"business_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/business_type?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"context","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/context?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"persona","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/persona?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"imagine_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/imagine_tag?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-au\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}