Council Post: Five Ways To Empower Wellness In Remote Working

Amid the coronavirus, we should prioritize nothing more than our health and wellness. However, with many organizations encountering organizational change, such as the need to work from home, employees can be thrown off from their usual wellness routines.

In fact, changes in the workplace are a leading cause of stress, which can have adverse effects on the immune system. Beyond this, as we isolate ourselves socially by working at home, we open ourselves to many other adverse health impacts. With so many drastic changes to our regular routines and schedules, it’s likely harder for most to balance and maintain their health as they should.

With a bit of adjustment and encouragement, business leaders can empower and serve their teams with tips to remain calm, happy, healthy and productive despite the world’s changes. As the CEO of a public relations firm in the fitness, health and wellness space, I have a few suggestions for business leaders:

1. Maintaining A Daily Routine

We all know how good it feels when we get into a good groove in life — when our schedules are perfectly in order and we sink into a feel-good routine. However, if those routines get thrown off, it can make us feel stressed, and that doesn’t give us good health.

We know that having a regular bedtime and maintaining hygienic habits are great for us. Beyond that, regularly working out and eating healthy meals are also important for optimal wellness.

Unfortunately, when working at home, our routines can quickly get thrown out of whack. We’re used to waking, commuting to the office, eating our usual lunch and heading home to unwind all at specific times. Without our routines in place, it’s easy for anyone to feel ungrounded.

So, without the structure provided by office life, it’s paramount for at-home workers to hold themselves accountable to some sort of schedule. Otherwise, we can easily find ourselves losing track of time. Emphasizing the importance of this to your employees either via emails or team calls is an excellent way to keep morale high.

2. Staying Active

When working from home, it can be much easier to live a sedentary lifestyle. We lose those daily activities like driving to work, walking through our offices and hitting the gym on the way home that make us feel active.

In fact, when we’re stuck at home, it’s much easier for many to get lost in our usual comforts, leading us to quickly become laptop-bound couch potatoes.

So to combat this, it’s a great idea to build movement seamlessly into our days. Inspire your workers to try home-based workouts, such as yoga or Pilates. You can also institute a companywide at-home fitness challenge that encourages employees to get a certain number of steps or to complete a certain workout.

Additionally, you can subsidize personal standing or treadmill desks for your employees to keep their blood moving throughout the day.

3. Practicing Self Care

Waking up early only to commute through traffic to work is often the most stressful part of the day. Thankfully, one silver lining about working from home is that we get to skip this arduous task entirely.

For some, commuting to and from work can take several hours. When working at home, those hours you spent commuting could be used wisely toward free time or self-care. Reading a great book, taking a walk in nature, enjoying a yoga stretch or a calming meditation, and even watching a favorite TV show can be excellent ways to destress now.

These are all things you can suggest to your employees to take advantage of during these difficult months to keep morale high.

4. Sharing Healthy Cooking Tips

While working in our offices, when lunchtime rolls around, many are used to eating in a cafeteria, heading to a favorite restaurant or simply enjoying a packed lunch. However, while working from home, we have to rethink our lunch routines.

With easy access to our kitchen, a whole new world of lunch options are just waiting to be explored. What’s better, eating home-cooked meals more frequently is linked to potential health benefits.

So, it’s time to start motivating your teams to learn and implement new recipes at home. One idea is to challenge your workers to cook healthy meals for themselves at least three times per week and share their meal photos with each other. Sharing is a great way to find recipes that have been tested and proved to be tasty before you cook.

5. Hosting Daily Check-Ins

During this time of social distancing, it’s more important than ever to understand the effects loneliness might be taking on someone, both physically and mentally. With this in mind, I believe it’s important that we maintain as much safe human contact as we can, while still keeping our distance.

That means being there for others via phone or video calls to truly check in with them and see how they’re coping with the current situation. As an employer or manager, one great way to encourage this is to set aside time at the start or end of your daily conference calls to let people share their feelings if they need support.

Although many of us aren’t used to it yet, working from home can help you get a new start in a new way with a new plan. With a bit of adjustment, you’ll empower your employees to wellness while they work from home.