Why Emotional Wellness is Important for Remote Teams?

2020 has been a tough year for many of us — both personally and professionally. While many are battling the deadly virus themselves, or supporting their loved ones who are infected, others are worried about their jobs and businesses. The pandemic has not only left many feeling disconnected and lost but has posed new challenges concerning an individual’s mental health and emotional well-being.

As businesses continue to function remotely in these unpredictable times, it has become essential for companies to look at employee emotional wellness from a new perspective. Working from home has blurred the lines between office and home — leading to unbalanced lifestyles. Employees not only have to deal with deadlines from work and concern for their loved ones but now also have to learn how to adjust to this new normal.

Offices functioned as not only a place of work but also provided a safe space for an emotional outlet. Whether it was seeing your team in a meeting, or a chai break with a friend — they facilitated collaboration and creativity. Human beings are social animals, and the lack of contact has reduced work to mundane routines.

Face-to-face communication is vital and studies have shown that in certain cases, upto 93% of communication can be conducted through non-verbal cues. However, over video meetings, most team members don’t even have their cameras switched on. Not only does this make meetings and interactions impersonal and monotonous, but it can cause the employee to feel disconnected from the company’s broader mission and goals.

The lack of human interaction, the absence of a space to collaborate and ideate, and the monotony of a work from home lifestyle creates a work culture where an employee is simply not motivated to work.

As teams shift to remote working, there are adjustments both the company and the employee are making. Without in-person collaboration and communication, and separate physical spaces for rest and work, employees are struggling. These issues fall outside the field of HR expertise, and are specific to each individual. These are issues and observations one can’t infer from surveys, short-term performance measures or a crowded meeting with an HR executive. And it is in times like these that an external perspective can help boost growth, positive work culture and employee emotional wellness.

DocVita’s Emotional Wellness Program offers precisely this perspective. Tailored for remote teams, the program involves a therapist, and a general physician, who ensure two crucial things for the company:

1. Give employees an outlet to their emotions — so they can become more resilient and help them with the transition to the new normal. Our expert therapists engage employees in coaching and counselling sessions every month. These sessions are targeted at reviewing and setting personal and professional goals for each team member. We also offer monthly team-building activities — helping companies get stronger as a team.

2. A General Physician checks in on your team members every month to conduct a detailed lifestyle review, and offers practical guidance to cultivate healthy habits, and helps them review and set monthly health goals.

This program is tailored to increase productivity at an individual level, thereby helping the company achieve goals holistically. Pre-COVID19, managers could understand the dynamics and morale of the team and the individuals it comprised through daily, face-to-face interaction. The lack of this communication leads to the absence of real feedback regarding the team’s well-being. With DocVita’s emotional wellness program, emotional coaches share reports regarding employee perception of work culture, goals and motivation levels; thereby arming managers with insightful data to make smarter decisions.

Working remotely also makes it convenient for people to switch jobs. In such cases, employee retention becomes all the more important, and individualised coaching has a significant impact on an employee’s decision to leave the company. Personal coaching and counselling and tailored team building activities connect the employee to the larger vision of the company, and knowing that the company too is invested in all aspects of their growth makes them reluctant to leave.

The end result is a team of motivated and emotionally well-balanced individuals who aspire to achieve not only their goals but are connected to the ethos and vision of the company as well.

We believe that every team member should have access to an expert — where they can express themselves freely and in confidence, and work towards cultivating a holistic growth mindset. We aim to help create a motivated team, and a positive work culture, where the work you love is not reduced to a mundane routine. Create a more efficient team today, and sign up for DocVita’s Emotional Wellness Program on www.docvita.com now!

Originally published at https://docvita.com on November 13, 2020.