Self Care Rules Your Remote-Working Staff Should Follow

Remote working is here to stay. While it carries its merits, working from home can be very stressful and overwhelming. In fact, 75% of remote workers share that they experience stress and burnouts from working at home, while over 37% indicate that they work longer hours than they used to. Needless to say, this can affect productivity. So, do you have a remote or hybrid working team? Do you want to keep them productive while working from home? Then here are some self-care rules you should encourage them to follow. 

Keep in touch with other workers

While working from home has numerous perks, it can get pretty lonely, especially if your workers have to shift from a traditional work environment. Studies also show that loneliness is beginning to cripple workplace productivity. Lonely workers take twice as many sick days leave periods, demonstrate less commitment, and churn weaker work performance. 

Encouraging daily check-ins with colleagues is one way to keep your employees socially engaged, especially for workers living alone. Beyond the social engagement, doing this also helps foster stronger collaboration among your workers to make them more productive. You can use social media platforms and instant messaging applications to create online hangout sessions. Or you could also encourage colleagues who live closer to each other to check up on each other physically once in a while. Doing this would also encourage employee engagement and commitment. Workers love to know their employers care about them beyond work.

Take regular breaks

There are break periods in a traditional workplace, and the same practice should extend to remote working environments. When remote workers are on a roll or have deadlines to meet, it can be tempting to work through lunch or ignore breaks. Plus, not seeing coworkers leave for breaks can encourage remote workers to skip theirs. 

But various studies have shown that taking regular breaks throughout each workday can increase productivity, as it helps to revitalize and refresh your workers. During breaks, your staff can choose to eat or relax with any activity of their choice, from taking a stroll to easing stress with products like caliburn. 

Make time to move about

Beyond the regular breaks, you should encourage your remote workers to adopt an active lifestyle, especially if they sit behind their computers for most of the day. Here is a fact that’ll frighten you. Brazilian researchers who analyzed data from 54 countries linked sitting for more than three hours a day to nearly 4% deaths from all causes. On the other hand, limiting sitting time to less than three hours a day can increase life expectancy by 0.2 years. 

Include ergonomic elements in their workspaces

You’ll be surprised to find out how often remote workers work from their beds or crouch behind the computers on the sofas. But according to several chiropractors, looking down from your laptop in such bent positions can damage posture and cause back pain. Encourage your workers to create more ergonomic work areas, beginning with a proper desk as an essential investment in their long-term health.