Activities to decrease stress levels in remote teams

5 ideas to reduce stress in remote teams

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Remote work and hybrid work have heaps of benefits. For example, Gallup asked 8000 employees what they loved about remote working and five major advantages stood out:

1. Better work/life balance – 71%

2. More efficient use of time – 67%

3. Freedom to choose when and where work happens – 62%

4. Less burnout – 58%

5. Higher productivity – 51%

With almost three-quarters of employees highlighting their newly-improved work-life balance, you might think stress would be a distant memory. But remote working isn’t all positive. And stress is complex.

In the same study, employees raised the following negative concerns or challenges that arose from remote working:

• Less access to work resources and equipment – 35%

• Feel less connected to organization's culture — 32%

• Decreased team collaboration – 30%

• Impaired working relationship with co-workers – 24%

• Reduced cross-functional communication and collaboration – 23%

• Disrupted processes – 22%

• More difficult to coordinate work schedules, tasks and timelines – 21%

Sure, we’re talking about lower percentages here. But overall, Gallup found employees raised more negatives than positives. Other challenges mentioned included unclear expectations, fewer development opportunities, fewer opportunities for feedback, and less recognition.

It’s easy to assume better work-life balance is a magical answer to workplace stress.

But stress is much more complex than that, and many of the challenges above are major drivers for stress. Stress can also be much more difficult to manage among remote and hybrid teams because you have less visibility over your people. When managers spend eight (or more) hours working alongside someone each day, they typically have an intuitive sense of how that person’s doing. With remote work, you lose that clear line of sight.

But we’re all about solutions here at Winningtemp, not just challenges. So – how do you fix it? In honour of Stress Awareness Week, we introduced our own concept called Health Days. Here are some ideas to reduce stress in remote teams.

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Ideas to reduce stress in remote teams

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1. Exercise challenges

There is a mountain of research proving exercise is a stress-buster, so encouraging your team to build healthy fitness habits makes good sense long-term.

For example, during “Health Days” we ran a ‘Step Challenge’ where we split everyone who wanted to take part into teams and counted their collective steps. Adding an element of healthy competition made the challenge fun and it was an easy way to involve everyone, wherever they work.

We also got great feedback from our people about Movement Hour – an hour where everyone, wherever they are, gets up and gets moving. In any form, from walking the dog to doing yoga.

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2. Meditation sessions

Meditation is another well-proven tactic to reduce stress at work. Mindfulness experts Headspace found that meditation actually reduced stress by 14% over only ten days.

And meditation doesn’t just decrease stress while you’re doing it. Studies show meditation actually changes your brain over time, so you’re less susceptible to stress long-term.

During Stress Awareness week and our initiative “Health Days”, we ran guided online and in-person meditation sessions which helped encourage everyone to proactively save space for their mental health. Another cool idea could be including a meditation app subscription in your employee rewards and recognition programme.

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3. Health and wellbeing guest speakers

We’re all probably guilty of thinking stuff like exercise and nutrition is “obvious”. But actually, there’s a whole world of nuance that can be super valuable to dig into.

We can vouch for that, as we recently invited a workplace ergonomics specialist to educate us for an hour’s session. And let us tell you, it’s not just about ergonomic chairs!

We’ve hosted various speakers we’ve all learned loads from, including an elite runner talking about training, a doctoral student in nutrition, and a specialist in positive psychology.

Creating a programme of specialist guest speakers empowers your employees to learn about their own mental health. And it’s super inclusive for remote and hybrid teams because you can record or set-up virtual sessions.

Plus, the sky’s the limit on what you could include! Bonus points for getting your people even more involved by asking for their ideas for topics they’d love to learn about.

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4. Host discussion groups

One thing we’ve done at Winningtemp that was appreciated by our employees was hosting discussion groups dedicated to different employee wellbeing topics.

For example, we ran a group called ‘Sleep is your superpower’. We watched a TED talk together and then had a lively discussion about our questions, learnings, and reflections. We also used Mentimeter – an interactive presentation software – to make sure everyone’s voice was heard, wherever they’re working from.

The feedback we got was that this discussion-based format was engaging and helped cement the lessons from the talk. Plus, constructive debate itself can help foster a sense of togetherness – studies have shown this strong sense of connection can be a major antidote to stress.

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5. Listen and act on employee feedback!

Look: there are definitely activities to reduce stress among your teams, whether they’re remote, hybrid, or office-based. We’re big proponents of being proactive and building an employee wellbeing programme that sends a strong message about your culture.  

But – there’s a but.

Stress is complicated. Mental health is complicated. Burnout is complicated. Engagement is (you guessed it) complicated.

Coming back to that Gallup study, your remote workers might have a better work-life balance that’s improving their stress levels. But they might also feel less connected to their colleagues and unsure what’s expected of them, which increase stress.

There are just too many factors to the wellbeing equation for you to accurately guess what your people need.

That’s why many organisations are moving towards using employee engagement software to demystify employee engagement and wellbeing. So you don’t think your people might be stressed. You know. And you know why. And you know what to do next, to drive meaningful change.

Download the guide now for eight practical tips to help managers build a culture of feedback that unlocks a happier, higher-performing team.

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Make the invisible visible

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One of the biggest challenges of managing hybrid and remote teams is the lack of visibility. Exactly at the time when employee wellbeing is under heaps of pressure (recession, anyone?) and your people need support more than ever.

Use these five ideas to take a handle on wellbeing, reduce stress in remote teams (or hybrid ones) and, most important, move towards a culture that gets the best from everyone.

And then watch our two-minute demo video to see how Winningtemp can help!‍‍