This article was originally posted on LinkedIn on 8th Sep 2022.

Employees and team members - no matter where they work - are happy and productive if their employer has certain policies and supports in place. Particularly aimed at negating the potential downsides of remote work, like fatigue, loneliness and lack of social connections, read on to learn what these seasoned experts have to say works for their remote teams!

Recently I had the chance to attend a virtual event organised by SafetyWing, where fellow remote work experts (Lona Alia from SafetyWing; Colby Splaine from Deel; Kati Reaugh from Jeeves; Adam Long from Firstbase) shared their insights on how to keep remote teams healthy, happy and productive. Read on to find out how to keep your remote team in shape!

AIM: Avoiding Fatigue and Burnout - These are not phenomena that happen all of a sudden! Typically, they take you by surprise, but they are the result of an ongoing lack of wellbeing at work that can accumulate over days, months, or even years. Remote workers are not immune to this: sometimes, when business hours are blurry, workers can end up overworking, shadowing the flexibility that remote work provides. 

1 - Embrace the flexibility of working fully! - Flexibility is key, but balance is difficult to achieve. As Lona Alia from SafetyWing said, the very first step to having a happy workforce is to “hire people with the same remote mission”, meaning that when everybody is on the same wavelength about remote work, managing a team becomes easier.   

Encouraging and taking micro and macro breaks should also be in your leadership/remote worker toolbox: “you are most productive when you are allowing yourself the grace and space to take micro-breaks throughout the day and really take ownership of your calendar” says Colby Splaine from Deel.

2 - Encouraging or even policing holiday time taken - It is important that leaders / human resources monitor how much annual/holiday leave their workers have taken. Remote workers can be so dedicated and engaged in their work that they may overlook using their holiday leave or feel nervous about taking time away from work.  Whatever is causing this failure to unplug, it isn’t sustainable for employees or for businesses. When remote workers aren’t able to fully disconnect, they often struggle to perform at their best and are more prone to burnout. 

Even the science says it: long hours and lack of time off don’t make you more productive.

3 - Leaders: you have to lead by example! - What happens when leaders are the first ones being overworked and stressed, not taking time off, and never taking a break? Nurturing a company culture of wellbeing and productivity starts with managers - if you do not lead by example, how do you expect your team to behave differently? 

• Start by celebrating the flexibility of the remote work lifestyle, by sharing tips and experiences from one’s remote work journey: “Having channels to celebrate, when you, as an individual, are taking advantage of remote work benefits is actually living it, celebrating it and taking advantage of that as a group”, says Adam Long.

• Promote time management skills by applying them first: Colby Splaine explains, “We try and encourage the leadership team to lead by example and set their calendars, set their Slack statuses, and make sure that people know it's OK to take that time throughout the day to work when you're most flexible”.

Foster a culture of openness about remote work and work from anywhere, with worker wellbeing being a key factor also, where you discuss the benefits and challenges: weaving wellbeing promotes the importance of the wheel of wellness and a holistic view on all the elements contributing to overall wellbeing.

AIM: Counteract Isolation and Loneliness - As a remote leader, you are on a mission to make working remotely less lonely. Enabling the creation of meaningful connections within teams is not an easy task. It becomes even more elusive when you experience the same challenges in a completely remote environment. Luckily, our experts share some important tips on how to keep engagement and motivation high. 

1 - Organise in-person meetings for relationship building and focused teamwork -Retreats are a great way of creating opportunities to mingle: they are meant to be in-person meetings where the atmosphere is relaxed and informal, but where company-wide objectives and culture are discussed. “People can really connect through informal meet-ups”, says Colby Splaine. And when you go back to your remote setting, and everyone is on video, “it does help that trust has been built”, continues Kati Reaugh. 

Retreats and meet-ups can be company-wide or team-based: 

• Encourage people from the same area to meet up regularly

• Allocate the budget for informal meetings

• Organise a regular company-wide offsite with a mixture of informal/playful and business-focused moments

2 - The importance of social activities  - Not being in the same physical room with coworkers, it becomes harder to read and relate to others – important emotional context can get lost or misinterpreted, and relationships with colleagues weaken. So connecting regularly, with tailor-made remote activities is paramount. 

• Organise virtual coffee chats, happy hours & show-and-tells: when people never stumble upon each other, it is difficult to go beyond professional relationships and topics. Athletes, gamers, artists… who knows what is hidden behind a job title? Having such informal, remote moments is fundamental to shifting the conversation to something that is not work-related, creating “bonds that you will carry throughout the quarter, which is nice”, says Lona Alia. Virtual offices like Tandem or Teamflow, or software like Focusmate make it possible to work together in a virtual space, making a big difference in creating a sense of belonging.

• Should your next virtual team gathering be a charity challenge, fundraising event, or Hackathon? Uniting the team virtually in a shared cause is a way to bond and motivate, supporting a worthwhile cause

3 - Use virtual engagement tools, with strategy and thoughtfulness - Any tool is useless if you don’t know how to use it. So first of all, make sure you have a strategy in place for the selection and the use of remote engagement and employee onboarding tools. 

Random meetings with coworkers, no matter where they are located! Colby Splaine explains that, at Deel, they chose Route Switch: “We use their connections platform and plugin through Slack to make it really simple for people to be connected in an informal way. There is a meet-up roulette, where every other week you receive a Slack DM from connections where Route is pairing you with someone else at Deel. And it prompts you through a process of setting up a time that works best for your calendar, it integrates directly with your calendar. So it's super easy. It's definitely a time investment, but it is a way to learn about your coworkers”

Create informal channels within those tools, to foster connections. Colby goes on to explain the importance of having specific channels in remote work tools that allow people to share interests, passions, and tips that are non-work-related. An example of this could be a Hobbies channel in Slack or another Instant Messaging system.

In closing, there are known downside of remote work, however seasoned experts and long established teams have valuable experience to share to help negate these potential risks. Starting with a policy, implementing key supports and on a daily basis bolstering these with practical behaviours and actions, all adds up to ensure healthy, happy and fruitful remote team!

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This article was originally posted on LinkedIn on 8th Sep 2022.