How to Support Health and Well-Being for Remote Employees

It has always been a prime challenge for organizations to engage employees who work from home or a remote location into the corporate wellness programs. It is not possible for remote employees to participate in perks offered by the companies as a part of compensation & benefit such as gym memberships,  group meditation or any other wellness program sessions as these require physical appearance of employees.

Global health epidemic Coronavirus (Covid-19) has made corporations in India asking employees to work from home to stay safe from infections. Consider designing an ideal work from policy.

It is a major step replacing traditional offices with remote offices to give their employees a flexibility for improved health and well-being. As per the reports, about 58% of office employees in India work from the remote location for an average of one day in a week.

So, what should be your approach to engage your remote employees with corporate wellness programs?

Our wellness experts suggest implementing “FICS” technique to resolve the complications of time and distance for the remote employees paving the way toward health and well-being. FICS technique ensures that your health and wellness initiatives are relevant to the employees’ needs and easy to access for all employees of the company.

Address time and distance issues with FICS:

Image Source: Businessworld.in

What is FICS in terms of health and wellness initiatives for your employees?

• ‘F’ stands for Flexibility. The wellness program need not be bound to any specific geographical location and time. Think of the ways to make your wellness initiatives independent of time and location constraints.
• ‘I’ stands for Inspirational. Your wellness programs must include motivation and celebration of success for each employee irrespective of the distance.
• ‘C’ stands for Complete. The wellness program must be holistic. Holistic programs focus on the mental, physical, emotional and financial well-being of employees.
• ‘S’ stands for Social. It does mean the wellness program should focus on improving the relationship among the employees.

Your wellness programs need to be perfectly optimized for FICS in order to provide your remote employees with health and wellness benefits.

How to Incorporate FICS in Corporate Wellness Programs

Run Common Program Digitally Accessible in all Locations

When you have decided to take wellness initiatives, make sure that those are available for all employees of the company irrespective of the locations. To make this possible consider:

• Using video tutorials so everyone gets guidance.
• Conducting live sessions through video conferencing so everyone is connected to get the benefit from it.
• Providing 24/7 helpline numbers for any kind of help.
• Podcasting on health and fitness sessions.
• Conducting online yoga classes.
• Hiring a coach for guidance on meditation through conference calls.

Gamification

To increase the engagement of more and more employees in the wellness program, you must focus on gamifying all the activities associated with the program so people can compete, make fun and play with each other.  Employees are thoght to take more interest in the reward-based wellness programs so consider incentivizing the employees who achieve certain health goals defined in the wellness program. Gamification can work extremely well with the web or app based challenges like weight loss, walk to fit and other remote based wellness competitions.

Company Wide Distribution of Information

Start a conversation with your in-office and remote employees in terms of wellness initiatives that are required to be implemented in the company. Be open to accept the ideas from your employees and let them come up with the initiatives as per their interest and need.

Never forget to share every small success of each employee with whole  company through the newsletter or social platform. You can also share tips on mental health, stress management, or any individual’s story to motivate employees located across various remote locations.

Boosting Employees’ Morale Frequently

Working from a remote location can generate a feeling of isolation from the rest of the employees in the company.  Consistently encouraging remote employees keeps them feel motivated and connected with the company’s wellness programs.

Go with Right Digital Platforms

Web or app-based wellness programs are suitable for remote employees as they can easily join such programs from any location digitally. App-based programs offer an accurate service and also give a feeling of social community and increase bonding among the employees without adding any extra cost to the company.

Following are the digital resources required for engaging remote employees with the wellness programs.

• Online Dashboards to View Health Insights
• Wellness App to send alerts or reminders and track health insights
• Online access to health coaches/counsellers/helplines. Read more about health coaching at the workplace.
• Company’s own social network or private portal to share wellness related information with remote employees.
• Wearable

So choose Truworth Wellness your health and wellness partner to achieve FICS to strengthen the connection between remote and in-office employees by the means of app-based health & wellness platform – The Wellness Corner. Apart, an access to wellness resources, fitness experts, dietitians and nutritionists is also given across the country.