Editor's Note: We recently updated this previously published post with new insights. Enjoy!
June is National Employee Wellness Month, and what a difference a year makes! Pandemic-related restrictions are slowly being lifted and life seems to be returning to some semblance of normalcy. There’s no better time to celebrate than this month when employees can once again get outside, resume their routines, and reconnect with friends and family.
In many companies, leading remote teams has become a new and ongoing reality as we move beyond pandemic-related social distancing and restrictions.
This puts a lot of pressure on those managers who’ve been “making it work” for over a year, fully expecting to return to an in-person environment.
How can they successfully lead remote teams for the long term?
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the pandemic has permanently changed how we work.
And the changes are far from over.
Workforce industry analysts are predicting some key trends for the future of remote work and hybrid workplaces that will impact where people work and even what they do for work.
But where does employee wellness fit in?
If you talk to most enterprise-level executives about lessons learned in 2020, don’t be surprised if employee wellness is mentioned—often.
According to the HR.com 2021 State of Employee Health and Well-being study, 63% of organizational leaders agree that mental health is among their Human Resources department’s top five priorities moving forward. And 75% of HR professionals reported in the same study that employee wellness has become more of a priority.
To put it bluntly, if your organization isn’t prioritizing employee wellness, you might soon find yourselves at a competitive disadvantage.
As companies continue to navigate remote working scenarios, one of their biggest challenges is maintaining employee engagement and well-being from a distance.
For some employees, this has been their first time working from home. Many still haven’t quite gotten the hang of it. They may feel isolated, disconnected, and overwhelmed by the competing priorities of work responsibilities and the demands of home life, especially if at-home schooling is thrown into the mix.
Teamwork makes the dream work.
A common phrase, but what does it really mean? Put simply, an engaged team working towards a common goal can overcome any obstacle. When a team participates in a team-building exercise, they build the tools for real-world scenarios that demand cohesion.
But now that many are still working from home, how can this sense of teamwork translate into a remote world?
It’s early 2021, and everyone is thinking about wellness.
The results of a recent global survey by marketing icon Ogilvy prove it. When Ogilvy polled 7,000 consumers across four continents and 14 countries, 77% of respondents said wellness is “very or extremely important to them.”
The worldwide distribution of coronavirus vaccines has begun, but it seems as if remote work is here to stay.
Here at WellRight, we’ve let our employees know we plan to stay fully remote through at least September 2021. Major employers, such as Google, have done the same.
We don’t know what the future will hold. The COVID-19 pandemic might start to recede, or it might worsen. Our children may continue remote education, or they may head back to school. The economy might begin to recover, or it might drop a bit more.
One major source of uncertainty for your employees is the question about where they might find themselves working in the coming weeks and months. Will they stay at home for the foreseeable future, or will they be called back to the office?
Whether it comes next month or several months from now, it’s going to happen. The stay-at-home regulations will be lifted, the threat of the coronavirus will recede, and public health officials will deem it safe for Americans to go back to work.
It’s important to understand that going back to the office won’t feel like business as usual for many of your employees. But planning now for the day you finally reopen your doors–however soon or far off that may be–can mitigate confusion and stress among your employees and make for a smooth transition.
