Introducing a remote workplace is one thing. It is another to promote a healthy work environment when employees are dispersed throughout several offices, locations, or homes. Let's look at what you, as a manager, can do to spot problems and make sure that your team and employees are giving their mental health the attention it deserves in the modern hybrid world.

5 Standard Practices to Create a Healthy Remote Workplace

1. Show empathy and understanding

Displaying empathy is important for any manager, and it all begins with communication. Consider whether your employees' remote workplace has all they require for them to be content and productive. Better yet, find out whether they need more support from you. Managing remote work along with office visits can be difficult, particularly if employees situated in different places feel isolated or undervalued compared to their coworkers.

2. Build trust

Trust is one of the most important factors in creating a healthy remote workplace, especially when teams are dealing with new and changing situations like working in a remote team. When introducing a remote work structure, managers tend to micromanage the employees. Rather, give them the freedom to be truly flexible, and they'll more than likely return you with higher productivity because they'll be able to juggle other obligations. A team member's value should be determined by their performance, not by where they are physically located.

3. Try to make remote teams cohesive

A sense of inclusion is crucial for the successful operation of remote teams. Merely planning an online meeting and anticipating that everyone will develop a sense of kinship is a wrong perspective. Keep an eye on how and when employees participate in these meetings and take time to investigate and comprehend any potential reasons why some of them might not feel as engaged as others. Out of sight must not mean out of mind for any manager. Thus, it is crucial to consider both formal and informal meetings to help bridge the gap between employees who work in-house and at home.

4. Facilitate focused meetings

One of the biggest disadvantages of the remote workplace paradigm is meeting fatigue. As such, hosting unnecessary meetings for minor updates or frequent meetings is very frustrating for everyone. Moreover, conducting meetings to check on remote employees to keep an eye on them is not just counterproductive but demoralizing as well.

Every manager must therefore ask these 2 golden questions before any online meetings: Do we actually need this meeting? If the answer is yes, do we need these members in this meeting? The answers to these questions will help clarify to whom should you send out invitations, prepare the agenda in advance, and prepare minutes for documentation and information sharing.

5. Supply quality tools

A remote workplace can only be productive if businesses invest in the necessary technologies. Especially, tools like updated computers, communication, and work-related software can enable remote workplaces to function smoothly.

In Conclusion

Remote workplace is unquestionably here to stay, although it may exist in different models across different organizations and economies. Changes like this come with their own set of challenges and obstacles and managers must learn how to tackle them to maintain a happy, motivated, and productive work environment.

Through years of experience, we have been able to create a healthy workplace for our employees and recognize its importance as well as impact. However, problems and issues are inevitable no matter how healthy the workplace is. Thus, we believe in continuous improvement and keeping ourselves updated on the demands of the situation and needs.