Keeping Spirits Up

November 2022

Keeping Spirits Up: Looking After a Remote Team in Trying Times

Winter is looming, nights are coming in earlier and darker, and for a lot of us that can bring in some low moods. Couple that with the cost of living crisis causing many people to experience a decline in people’s mental health, and you could have a team that are struggling this winter.

For teams that work entirely at home, despite the freedom and flexibility there can occasionally be some feelings of isolation. Apart from this potentially having a huge impact on company morale, ultimately impacting productivity, you should really care about the wellbeing of your team. Especially if they work remotely, you need to put in some time to help make them feel involved with the company community.

There’s a lot you can do to make trying times a little more bearable for a remote team, so let’s take a look at that…

 

A Good Starting Point for Remote Teams

Figuring out where to start when it comes to keeping your remote team engaged with the business and happy in their roles can feel a little overwhelming. So here are some areas you could look into, see if you can improve any of these aspects in your business…

  • The tools to work effectively – One of the biggest issues that have an impact on your team’s mental health is not having everything they need to properly do their job. It can lead to unnecessary stress when they feel like their ability to perform is limited by something out of their control. A bespoke CRM can help save on additional IT costs by providing an all in one place solution for your customer service and sales team, and with third party integration they can save time too.

  • Flexibility to work – Realistically, working 9 to 5 isn’t the best way to make a living for some. These rigid hours aren’t always suited to people with childcare needs, for just one example. Enforcing strict hours can cause unnecessary stress on people with valid demands outside of work. When you’re working with a remote team, you’re not restricted to an office schedule. And with a cloud based CRM solution that can be accessed 24/7, the time that you team works isn’t too important so long as they’re hitting deadlines. You can always set core hours during the day that everyone has to be available, to keep up communication. For example, core hours could be 11:00 to 15:00, but individuals can choose when to make up the rest of their contracted hours outside of that.

  • Wellbeing days – In addition to holiday allowance, it wouldn’t hurt to offer your team a couple of extra wellbeing days a year. Particularly during difficult times, those extra days could allow members of your team to just take a moment to focus on themselves, and make all the difference in getting their personal lives in order without feeling that they need to use up holiday allowance (or worse, call in sick as a means of getting a day to switch off). You can manage the performance of staff with a bespoke CRM, and see how much productivity will improve when staff feel like their hard work is rewarded with more opportunity to unwind.

  • Keep up communication – Make sure your team feels involved with the business, and each other. Make time to set up socials (either in or out of core hours, at your discretion) so that team members can just take some time to talk to each other. With remote teams, it’s likely that some members might not see anyone else during their working day. So encouraging this regularly online socials can limit those feelings of isolation and ultimately make your team members feel more valued and listened to.

 

Offer Flexibility with the Right Tools

We talked about offering flexibility for your team to work hours that best suit them. Flexibility is the key to success when it comes to working around mental health issues. As we mentioned earlier, you can’t always predict when you’re going to struggle with your mental health. So, in addition to allowing flexibility, you need to be able to offer the tools to enable that flexibility.

A bespoke CRM solution will grant you and your team that flexibility, giving you the ability to work in any place (even if that is your bed). With a purpose built CRM solution, there’s no more anxiety around wondering if everyone has access to what they need, for you or your team.

 

Break the Silence Culture

A lot of people struggling with their mental health will suffer with silence. Show your team that it’s okay to talk about their struggles – we’re all human at the end of the day. With a remote team, make time to check in with them so no one is feeling isolated, even if it’s just an e-mail mid-week. Talk to your team about how to overcome their struggles, you can make adjustments to their work schedules without losing productivity.

Do you want to give your team the best tools to manage their stress and keep your workplace happy? Get in touch to try a demo of Lunar CRM’s bespoke solution, or explore our website to learn more.

 

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