Leaders, Share These Tips with Your Suddenly Remote Work Team

It’s a high-stakes time for business leaders and teams, with fears about COVID-19 sending countless employees scurrying home to work remotely. Leaders need to ensure their teams stay as positive as possible, yet people are feeling disconnected and uneasy.

It’s helpful to remember that working in an office provides plenty of unplanned breaks and moments of social interaction, like when we’re commuting, having lunch, or heading in or out of a meeting. Those natural time blocks also break up the day and give it a predictable rhythm. In contrast, days spent working from home can seem a little endless. People who aren’t used to it (or didn’t choose it) may simply forget to take regular breaks or even to interact with others. What follows? The risk of burnout and exhaustion.

As a leadership coach, I hope leaders will remind their now-remote teams to be intentional about planning breaks. Experts have long agreed that interrupting the daily grind at least for a few minutes every hour does wonders for our ability to focus. They point to our decreasing ability to concentrate on something that remains constant over time. Just like we stop noticing the feeling of our clothes against our skin, so, too, do we stop paying attention to all the nuances of a project or a document when we work on it uninterrupted, hour after hour.

Get outside

Anyone who knows has heard me talk about the incredible power of spending time in the open air to help us reset, recharge, and refocus. That’s why I don’t simply recommend getting up from your desk to stretch or refill your water bottle. I strongly suggest you get outside—even if you’re just spending a few minutes in your own backyard or taking a stroll around the block.

Tune in to awe

Here’s a guaranteed way to quickly refresh your mind and your body: Step outside, take a few slow deep breaths, and tune into all of your five senses. When you consciously slow down and notice the tiny details around you—like the shadows dappling the ground, the raindrops caught in the cobweb, or clouds scudding across the sky—your brain chemistry changes. As Mother Nature works her magic, our dopamine- and serotonin-levels spike. With a little active noticing, we experience the emotion of awe and all the benefits that come with it. Neuroscience shows that experiencing awe leads to a surge in creativity, motivation, and inspiration. Isn’t that just what every worker, remote or not, needs?

Use technology to take a break with a friend or your whole team

For teams now forced to work from home due to COVID-19, chances are, you may feel some loneliness from being on your own all day. I encourage teams to use technology to get your work done and to stay connected to real live human beings (I say “human beings” as a gentle reminder that chatting with your dog or cat isn’t really a substitute for having conversations with people!). With a little effort and practice, you really can create an authentic sense of connection over Slack or a video conference platform. Plan a virtual team coffee break or happy hour, or even spend a few minutes uploading photos of something that made you smile or feel joyful today. It’s a low-risk way for us to interact with other people right now and keep feelings of isolation and loneliness at bay.

Finally, I want to add that regulating our emotions takes a good amount of effort at the best of times. With everything that’s going on in the world, most people’s nerves are a little bit frayed, so it’s a great time for all of us to show a little extra kindness and compassion—to our employees, our colleagues, our neighbors, and ourselves.

Need help ensuring your team stays positive? Get in touch.