10 Incredible Ways to Improve Workplace Well Being

The continuous lockdowns have democratized the tradition of teleworking. The first few months were somewhat challenging for many French employers and their employees. As such, it was imperative to find one’s rhythm, organization and even motivation, in the midst of the temptation of procrastination.

Despite all these, telecommuting is still an incredible concept as it allows for more flexible working arrangements. Undeniably, this approach offers more responsibilities, autonomy, and trust from managers and leaders. All these elements play a pivotal role in the motivation of employees.

In this article, Gaël Chatelain, a consultant in benevolent management, shares answers to 10 of the most crucial questions of improving well-being at work during lockdowns.

10 Questions To Improve Your Well Being At Work

Here are ten essential questions and answers that will help you understand why employee well-being is important.

1. Is it Possible to Improve Well Being at Work While in Confinement?

Permanent distance, loss of social relations – confinement is a serious trigger for anxiety, especially in places where happiness and well-being do not have room to thrive. Still, we are in the right conditions to ask the most crucial questions and to try things we never did before. Teleworking does not give people sufficient time, even though it saves time on travels, but it gives the freedom to organize our working day. Then, it is a question of “taking” the time.

For example, you can use it to spend more time with your family. You can also take multiple sessions with breaks in-between to improve productivity and quality of life. Lastly, you can also add relaxation sessions or sports at the start or end of your day. Keep in mind, telecommuting is not all about presenteeism. Once you have accomplished your objectives, your day can be over.

2. Why Is It Crucial to Create A Lockdown Routine?

For families with young children, there is great importance in having a routine. In fact, children are often taught about routine in kindergarten – to behave until the bell rings. It streamlines our way of life. In this context, routine can be seen as a game and not a bad thing. As a parent, you can tell your children not to distract you when wearing a hat, “your teleworker uniform.”

If the loss of reference points creates anxiety, it is because human beings are structured by default. Teaching yourself a routine lets you find a productive work environment. But, you should not try to control everything just because you do not want to get bored. Accept the fact that you do not have to be busy all the time in order to increase motivation in the workplace as well as your well-being and creativity.

3. How to Reconcile Well-being and Performance at Work During Lockdown?

This has been proven time and time again, well-being in your personal life has a major influence on your performance at work. Therefore, general performance is as a result of the addition of professional skills (know-how and soft skills), motivation at work, and clear operational objectives. In other words, performance and well-being go hand in hand. So, you should ensure you are peaceful at heart with lockdown to produce quality work.

4. How Can You Continuously Manage Your Team Even Remotely?

Technically, a manager and leader spends approximately 80 percent of their time with 20 percent of their employees, based on the tasks carried out and affinities. The benefit of lockdown is that it distributes time equally. With a Skype call or WhatsApp chat, 100 percent of the employees are present. Each individual is treated equally and fairly.

In other terms, the role of the local manager is to ensure the relational dynamics required for the development, performance and workplace wellness of their talented employees. It starts with a high sense of listening to employees, leadership, non-violent communication, and organizational skills.

Staying on course and standing up for the organization’s value, better communication and more, carrying out individual interviews to support and encourage your team members – this is the best actionable plan to be a credible remote manager and enhance workplace well-being at work. Sometimes, this means adapting the organization’s human resource management strategies and policies.

5. How to Prevent Virtual Meetings From Accumulating?

While maintaining discussion spaces is vital, it is not important to fall into acute or rather urgent meetings as it is an unproductive accumulation of video conference meetings. There are three crucial rules meant to dissuade:

• Every meeting should have an agenda, sent at least 24 hours in advance.
• Individual meetings should have a running session of thirty minutes and must be observed.
• The organizer should send reports within the 30 minutes after the meeting.

6. What Playful Solutions Can Companies Introduce to Improve Well-being at Workplace in Confinement?

Humor is crucial in times of crisis. For a good reason, it promotes the positivity of working conditions by enlightening the moods . Rather than working in an environment filled with negative energy that triggers disengagement, it is vital to share positive emotions. It would be best to create a funny and personal video on a topic of “how to improve well-being in confinement. Moreover, there are countless team-building activities that can be carried out even during lockdown, such as interactive quizzes, digital aperitif, remote escape game, online conferences.

7. How to Maintain The Connection with Your Team Members in Telecommuting?

The feeling of belonging in this specific period is important. The manager and leader should hence reinforce and champion the organization culture as much as they can. In addition, they must ensure that everyone feels homely and not alienated. For this to be possible, you should make great use of collaborative tools such as WhatsApp, Skype, Instant Messaging, and Zoom. It is up to the manager to decide which platform works best for everyone. As aforementioned, there are many team-building activities to ensure a good working environment and enhance team cohesion.

8. What Is The Positive Side of Lockdowns on The Quality of Work Produced?

Prior to lockdown, approximately 16 percent of French organizations had telework agreements, while 70 percent of employees wanted to work remotely. Therefore, confinement shows results in improved employee engagement and their quality of life. In this context, lockdown enables people to find ideas to streamline the work organization. Some of the questions to ask include: what new initiatives must be leveraged and what old ones should be discarded? What areas were performing poorly and how can things be changed to improve well-being at work? The best way to answer these questions is by holding conversations with your workers.

9. How To Avoid The Pressure To “Catch Up” After The Confinement?

You ought to think about this immediately. How to organize thereafter? You should get into “project mode”, share and exchange workplace well-being ideas and allow every party to take part in the debate. To give a solid example, at the start of 2022, CoachHub had set itself the mission of organizing seven webinars. 5 of these webinars were successfully held in a single month! Lockdown pushes us to reinvent everything. Maintaining the routines that work also keeps the pressure off.

10. My Manager Takes Advantage Of Teleworking To Ask Me For Help On Weekends. How Should I React?

Don’t be afraid to say “no.” Establish clear rules to follow. Because our apartment has become our work environment, it is important to reclaim our work space and time, without being influenced by confinement. The balance between family life and professional life must be maintained, even accentuated, in order not to give in to an exponential workload leading most of the time to burn-out.

Communication is also essential. Ask for an open discussion with your manager and talk about your difficulties without taboos. We are living in an extreme period which has this exceptional capacity to increase empathy. Especially in France, where the legal, social and economic response is better than in other countries. Let’s take advantage of this!

How to Improve Well-being at Workplace Through the Culture Coaching

This is a great time to reinvent management strategies and move towards trust-based, caring and participative management in workplace well-being programs. Say goodbye to the culture of presenteeism and control. Today, the managerial trend is towards empowerment, autonomy and trust. While distance could have driven team members apart, it has instead strengthened the bonds. Team spirit is more present than ever in telecommuting, via collaborative tools and video conferencing. Not to mention that managers are becoming more caring and empathetic, encouraging active listening and internal communication. Finally, organizational practices have been turned upside down. Employees are once again in control of their own schedules, which they shape in their own way.

Professional coaching to enhance company performance and improve well-being at work is proving interesting. Thanks to CoachHub for its coaching sessions and bespoke workplace wellbeing services, your employees will learn how to manage stress at work, develop their leadership style and work on their managerial skills in order to create good working conditions, even remotely.