With the world accepting working from home as part of the new face of the modern workplace it’s vital that employers adapt their HR strategies to take into account the novel stresses that staff may experience in their home-office work environments.
With the absence of a commute, an employee’s day can lose structure, and the lack of office banter and the mini-breaks that occur naturally in the workplace can lead to people becoming stressed and lonely.
As the novelty of the newfound freedoms that WFH affords employees, there are accompanying stresses that need to be acknowledged and addressed.
Replicate the Office Environment:
Encourage your employees to try and replicate the office environment as much as possible.
Where possible, they should set up a designated working space that is separate from their home life.
Many people have found that working from home has made it harder to achieve a work/life balance as it’s easier for working hours to merge with your free time.
Sticking to a structure, and maintaining a distance from your work after-hours can help workers think of work as work and home as home.
Encourage Breaks:
Sounds counter-intuitive, surely you want your team to be getting their heads down and working their hours? However, continuous work without a break is actually counterproductive and unhealthy.
In a regular office environment, how many micro-breaks do you witness in a day? A little five minutes screen break here and there does wonders for productivity.
Usually, this would be spent on a casual chat with a coworker or popping to the office kitchen for a coffee.
Get Some Air:
Usually, the working day starts with leaving the house. Many people who are working from home can find it an effort to go out if they have no reason to.
Employees should be encouraged to get some air and get their heart pumping, either before or after work or during their lunch break. Maybe consider looking into some fitness schemes that your staff can take part in.
There are some great programs on offer.
Stay Connected:
It can be lonely working from home, especially for single employees and now that a social life is a thing of the past, in this current situation. Make sure that your team stays connected with regular calls and by using IM software so that your employees are but a click away.
Zest’s Engagement Centre allows for targeted emails and bespoke email content pages so that you can communicate with your workforce in a personalised way and keep them in the loop with goings-on.
You can also take advantage of the freeform Content Pages for CEO messages, perhaps a mid-week pep talk?
Rewards Work:
Everyone likes a little treat now and then, especially to let them know you’re thinking of them even though you might not see them every day.
How you reward your employees is up to you, but you do need to consider if how you’re delivering your employee benefits is the best way of doing so.
This post was written by Zest who are an exhibitor on the HRTech247 Benefits & Reward and Employee Engagement floors. You can visit their HRTech247 exhibition stand here.
