Supporting Employee Wellbeing in a Work-From-Home World

Chances are, you’re reading this post at home. You could be alone with your thoughts in a studio apartment or tucked away in a closet seeking silent productivity away from your restless brood. Whatever your situation, you are likely adjusting not only to how you can personally operate in this shelter-in-place environment, but also how best to interact with your team members. These are strange times and they require a unique management perspective which goes beyond ‘virtual work engagement.’ It involves the mental health and well-being considerations for your employees who may be feeling particularly disconnected.

Research indicates employees have mixed feelings regarding remote work. They value the flexibility but miss out on the morale boost of working alongside a team. We’re trying a lot of different tactics to keep morale up here at Civilian including:

• Going beyond Zoom happy hours to Fitness Fridays featuring videoconference workouts led by a rotating roster of instructors from across the office. These informal, lunch time get-togethers hit two of the top self-care best practices—social connection and exercise.   Our regular attendees say the lunch time workouts really up the endorphins to get them through any afternoon slump.

• Regular company-wide Town Halls informed by employee feedback.  In addition to juggling our regular work schedules remotely, we are quickly coming up to the end of our lease at Liberty Station and are currently soliciting employee feedback on needs and goals. Our managers are also conducting regular mental health check-ins getting on the phone or video conference one-on-one with each of their direct reports to keep the team cohesive and fight the negative effects of isolation.

• Continuing our commitment to help others. Civilian provides every employee with paid volunteer time and we’ve found there’s no better cure for anxiety or depression than giving back to the community.  While most food bank rosters are booked through summer, our team volunteered last week handing out lunches to San Diego Unified School District families.  You can find the link to sign-up or many more opportunities to donate time or money at Hands on San Diego.  

What is your company doing to keep employees connected during quarantine? Drop us a line and let us know what’s working for you.