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Being a remote worker is a godsend for many employees. You have more time to spend with family, navigate a healthy work-life balance equation, and work on your terms.
But it’s not without its downsides.
Remote employees often cite burnout, isolation, and loneliness as part of the virtual office experience. Without meaningful, in-person conversation and socialization, remote work can lead to unhealthy habits and mental health woes.
Despite struggles with employee well-being, remote work can remain a viable, productive enterprise — but only with accessible virtual health and wellness programs. When remote team members can manage stress and isolation and feel like part of the team, productivity, camaraderie, employee engagement, and a strong company culture follow.
By implementing strong employee wellness programs and prioritizing employee health, you can build a strategic pillar for high-performing teams. Put these virtual wellness ideas to use and discover how a healthy team is a successful team.
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Energizing a virtual team can seem daunting. You must manage people’s physical health and mental well-being while instilling healthy habits in their personal lives. Mindfulness of workers’ specific personal situations and varying your activities to encourage engagement are essential.
With these virtual wellness ideas, you can provide an interactive forum to discuss remote work issues, bolster virtual team-building, and lead your team to individual and collective greatness.
Let’s start with the simplest one of many virtual wellness ideas: the weekly check-in. Meeting with an employee via Zoom on a weekly basis can provide a psychologically safe workspace, break the monotony of the workday, and provide an outlet for questions and concerns.
When employees feel safe in their environment, the benefits follow. Studies from Gallup and Harvard Business Review show that psychological safety contributes to some staggering improvements:
In just one 15- to 30-minute meeting, employee performance improves exponentially. Plus, you get to know and grow with your team as they navigate the complexities of life and work.
Combine physical and mental wellness a few days a week by incorporating yoga sessions into your virtual wellness ideas. Led by a yoga expert via Zoom, these classes can help your employees de-stress and unwind before the workday begins.
If possible, find a yogi who specializes in ergonomic yoga. This branch of yoga focuses on stretching to reduce discomfort and back pain associated with long days in front of a computer. With a short, focused session (15 to 30 minutes), the home office becomes much more inviting.
Let’s face it. Healthy eating is enough of a challenge, but fitness is equally as concerning. A sedentary home office lifestyle, distractions, and a lack of routine can put the screws on even the most well-intentioned workout regimen.
For the sake of your employees’ health (and healthcare costs), a fitness challenge is one of the best virtual wellness ideas. Have each person choose a fitness goal. It could be to lose 10 pounds, do 20 pushups, or do 100 sit-ups. The intention is to have each person select a reasonable goal that’s both challenging and attainable. Track the goals via a fitness app, a shared spreadsheet, or honor system journaling. The person(s) who reach their goals get a reward or incentive — such as a virtual gift card — for their efforts.
To sweeten the deal, sign up your team for fitness classes, give a stipend for a gym membership, or offer online cooking classes for healthier meals.
Team meetings don’t have to feel dull and repetitive, but most tend to border on the mundane. While you can spice things up with a theme or chit-chat before moving on to the issue at hand, virtual wellness activities are an equally effective meeting starter.
Some pre-meeting ideas include meditation sessions with your entire online group or some stress management with a work-related “airing of grievances,” which allows employees to get any issues off their chest.
You can end the audio or video call with tips to improve daily routines and mindfulness as it relates to wellness in the remote work environment.
Loneliness and isolation are profound byproducts of the remote work lifestyle. The fewer opportunities your staff has to interact with others or leave the house, the more employee morale and mental health issues follow. It’s a common yet major wellness challenge many employers and employees face.
To combat these feelings, set up mental health workshops as part of your virtual wellness programs. These interactive webinars provide an open forum for mental health discussions, including strategies for overcoming loneliness and building resiliency toward these feelings.
According to a recent poll, nearly half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. As wages stagnate, prices increase, and inflation persists, financial wellness directly impacts mental well-being.
Fortunately, a financial health workshop can alleviate some of the stress caused by living from week to week. Have a financial expert discuss personal finance, including retirement plans, how much to save, and what constitutes a smart purchase. This virtual wellness idea will work if you can convince your employees to make small financial changes that relieve stress.
Though virtual happy hours may not gracefully coincide with physical wellness challenges, they’re always a welcome addition to your virtual wellness ideas or brainstorming sessions. Because many remote workers don’t have opportunities to interact with one another, a virtual happy hour can bring people together in a non-work-related fashion for some old-school, after-hours conversation.
Remember that not all workers are versed in the art of conversation or small talk. If you sense a lull in the happy hour or get a poor turnout, add some virtual activities or happy hour games to the mix. With trivia, bingo, and charades, the entertainment value of a happy hour increases exponentially.
Since before the pandemic, team-building games have become a cornerstone of virtual wellness ideas. The true allure of team-building activities is that they improve remote worker wellness and relieve stress while providing a host of other benefits, including:
A virtual wellness session is an actual team-building activity, but you don’t have to stop there. You can also try trivia, a scavenger hunt, an escape room, karaoke, or any other light-hearted activity that brings fun and excitement to your remote staff.
In the age of YouTube, TikTok, and other social media, the printed word has fallen out of style, especially with the younger generations. However, reading should never fall by the wayside. Within the pages of any book, you have the ability to:
However, distractions and paths of lesser resistance, such as social media, TV, etc., may detract from reading books. That’s what makes book clubs one of the more interesting virtual wellness ideas.
Online book clubs are much like any other interest group. They bring together like-minded people to discuss literary works, socialize, and make work friends. Plus, you don’t have to force work-related books into the group — though balance is key.
You may want to intersperse a nonfiction or self-care book for every few fiction books, reinforcing topical issues or wellness on top of more leisurely reading.
Virtual wellness ideas start with employee well-being in mind. But if you have a globally distributed team or those whose schedules don’t gel, take some initiative by sending the perfect self-care gift package.
These work-from-home care packages contain everything your employees need to relax, unwind, and escape from the home office, even if only for a few minutes. Personalization is always a bonus. Learn more about your employees before you send the package, and include a handwritten thank you or words of gratitude.
In each package, add things such as:
With these supplies, your employees can work on wellness and mindfulness on their own time — a valuable boon away from work.
Virtual coffee is the modern-day equivalent of the morning meeting or watercooler chat. Much like these age-old office rituals, virtual coffee is about connecting with others while preparing for the day. Even casual chit-chat can bring calmness to a hectic day while fraternizing with other workers.
Include a Starbucks gift card or an open-ended gift card that your employees can use to buy a cold brew from their local roaster.
Virtual wellness ideas don’t take hold overnight. Repetition is integral to building each person's fitness, nutrition, and wellness routine. If even one person responds well to your wellness program, you’ve achieved something. One person living the good life can create a cascading effect on others throughout the organization — building a wellness-based mechanism that can reduce stress, boost momentum, and create the high-performing teams you’ve only read about.
Until now.
Ready to 2x your global engagement at your next event, with Ox stress?
Make Hoppier your unfair advantage today, schedule a demo
Ready to 2x your global engagement at your next event, with Ox stress?
Make Hoppier your unfair advantage today, schedule a demo
Ready to 2x your global engagement at your next event, with Ox stress?
Make Hoppier your unfair advantage today, schedule a demo
Ready to 2x your global engagement at your next event, with Ox stress?
Make Hoppier your unfair advantage today, schedule a demo
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