8 experts discuss mental health tips for remote teams

How do you balance mental health and remote work?

For leaders, this is a question about which benefits to offer and how much oversight to exercise over employee activities. For remote workers, it’s a question of self-regulation, avoiding burnout, and (in some cases) finding a better role. Both groups need answers.

Whether you need tips for your remote team or want to improve your own mental well-being, we’re here to help. Our network of remote work experts has shared some of their best tactics to protect your energy, support your team, and enjoy the full mental health benefits of remote work.

1. Don’t overlook when people overwork

“Many leaders are so focused on the growing output rates that they neglect to look behind the scenes and realize that their workforce is burning out from overwork and stress, only producing out of fear of losing their job,” says Laurel Farrer, CEO of Distribute Consulting.

An estimated 38% of professionals report being more burned out in 2023 than the previous year, with heavy workloads (56%) and lack of communication (32%) being the top contributing factors. What makes this even worse is that 1 in 5 employees say their manager has made no efforts to reduce work-related stress.

Rule number one of improving mental health in any work environment: reducing stress is easier than mitigating it. If you set unrealistic expectations, workloads, and deadlines, your team’s mental health will suffer no matter what perks you offer.

See also: Experts reveal the best ways to reduce stress for remote workers

“Businesses can help remote employees manage their mental health by keeping manageable and sustainable project cycles internally,” says Rhiannon Payne, author of The Remote Work Era. “This means not constantly ‘sprinting’ and giving employees time to reflect and cool down between big projects.”

One of the best ways to manage workloads is to observe all-company holidays. Remote hosts self-care days to give our team members regular breaks. The key to a good company holiday is to ensure as many people as possible take advantage so that no one returns to work with an excessive backlog.

2. Organize zero-work activities to connect

Remote work blurs a lot of lines: the line between the home and the office, the line between working hours and all other hours, and the line between casual conversation and work talk. People in offices spend plenty of time talking about everything but work, and remote teams should get the same opportunities.

“With remote work, you have to create these moments for team bonding on your own,” says Remote CEO Job van der Voort. “The only way to do that is to think deliberately… At Remote, we have multiple bonding calls at different times, play games together, have fun Slack channels, and an always-on hangout where people can go to talk about non-work topics.”

Companies with remote teams often face questions about how to create camaraderie within teams. The secret is that it’s not a secret at all, but it does require leaders to acknowledge the need and provide spaces where connections can happen.

“Team members can feel isolated at times, so it is very critical to organize remote activities that enable individuals to feel more connected with each other,” says Qasim Salam, co-founder and CEO of remoteBase.

3. Stand up for your own well-being

Ultimately, maintaining good mental health is a personal challenge. No matter how supportive the organization is, employees must be able to recognize their own needs and act in their own best interests.

“Although the responsibility of health and wellness truly lies with the individual, organizations need to take the lead to adapt every policy and process with wellbeing in mind, from remote policies and communication charters to team rituals,” says Farrer.

See also: How to support employees who don’t like working remotely

In practice, this means leaders need to be public about their own mental health maintenance. If everyone at the director level and up works long hours and never seems to take a break, employees will follow that example, and the company will suffer. When leaders are public about using PTO, taking the occasional sick day, and signing off to do things that aren’t work, employees see those actions as tacit permission to do the same.

Don’t let the truth of personal responsibility make you insensitive to the needs of employees. Yes, it’s up to them to manage their wellness, but you can and should support their efforts to maintain their mental health.

4. Recognize that people’s homes are not company offices

A home office is a home first and an office second. More importantly, though, that office belongs to the person using it — not the company at which that person works.

“A lot of people are concerned about sharing their personal concerns with remote work,” says Chris Herd, CEO of Firstbase. “They’re trying to replicate the office remotely, and that becomes an incredibly invasive thing. Now you’re in people’s homes, and that’s a big problem.

People have been reluctant to share negative feedback against that because of what we're living through. Increasingly we’ll see people rebel against that.”

Homes have things like pets, kids, chores, and distractions inside them. Not everyone has multiple rooms to create distance from home life and work life. Life’s many little interruptions must become a normal part of remote work life if employees are to feel safe and valued.

“Normalizing interruptions from SO's, kids, pets, family and friends, takes a lot of anxiety away during video calls,” says Remote’s head of people, Nadia Vatalidis. “We are remote-first: this is normalized from the outset for all of us.”

5. Facilitate meetups in the real world

While remote work can provide incredible mental health benefits, humans are social creatures who benefit from real-world connections. Working remotely allows us to be more selective in how we create those connections. For example, saving time on a commute leaves more time to spend with family and friends. That said, for better mental health at work and increased team cohesion, real-life meetups can make work feel a little more welcoming.

See also: What soft benefits do remote workers expect from remote-first companies?

“Twice a year, we do these retreats,” says Wade Foster, CEO of Zapier. “We haven't been able to do one now for over a year, and we're noticing it. Even in a fully remote company, that in-person time is really effective at bringing that camaraderie, building those bonds, building that sense of community...If you're going to go fully remote, don't forget that some amount of in-person connection does go a long way.”

Bringing an entire global company together is an expensive endeavor, but the rewards are worth it. However, not every gathering has to include every single person at the company. Small gatherings for individual teams and meetups for people who live in the same region are great, relatively inexpensive ways to lift spirits.

6. Lean into asynchronous work

Working from home offers employees many benefits — more flexibility and autonomy, fewer distractions, and no commute time, to name a few. 

But the tradeoff is that remote workers often feel pressured to stay “plugged in” and respond to messages at all hours.

“At wrkfrce we believe you should design your career around your life — not vice versa,” says Jesse Chambers, founder and CEO of wrkfrce. “Within our team, I emphasize and promote asynchronous work, and as a business, we help others learn to use this simple, effective strategy to empower our audience to be the best versions of themselves, in their careers and their lives.”

Asynchronous work enables people to work on their own terms without needing to interact in real time. Email is a common form of asynchronous communication; work emails are sent with the knowledge that the reply likely won’t be immediate. The benefit here is employees can focus on their work without the pressure of feeling like they have to respond to messages instantly. 

Use tools like Slack or Loom to facilitate asynchronous communication, and provide training on how to use them. Designate “productive times” for team members to focus without interruptions, and encourage them to turn off any work-related notifications during their off hours.

7. Promote open and transparent communication

Open communication is critical to setting clear expectations and holding your team accountable. While this may sound obvious, you may be surprised to learn that just 44% of employees know what’s expected of them. This can impact their engagement, which only stresses the importance of transparent communication in the workplace.

“One of the most important [company values] for us is default transparency,” says Joel Gascoigne, CEO of Buffer. “Because if we can be transparent, it’s going to lead us to share decisions that are going on early and often... And so, that just enhances and improves how remote work happens.”

Promoting open communication with your team members isn’t easy, especially when they work in different time zones. To address this, Gascoigne holds a monthly all-hands meeting with his international team in which they discuss important company-wide matters. The session is recorded so that those who can’t attend can watch it later. They also hold a monthly “all-hands hangout” where employees are free to discuss anything they’d like.

Adopt a similar approach to cultivate a more transparent and open culture. You can take it a step further by conducting individual check-ins to collect feedback and better understand what you can do to reduce any work-related stress.

Tools to support your remote teams’ mental health

The right tools can not only facilitate communication and collaboration but also support your teams’ mental health. Use these tools to promote mental well-being:

Virtual meeting platforms

Virtual meeting platforms enable teams to communicate and collaborate on projects without being in the same location. You can use them to run remote meetings and conduct regular check-ins with your team.

Our top picks are:

• Zoom: Zoom is a video conferencing platform that experienced significant growth during the pandemic. It offers a generous free plan that lets you host 40-minute video meetings with up to 100 participants.

• Microsoft Teams: Teams is a versatile virtual meeting platform that offers native integrations with other Microsoft 365 tools. Business plans allow unlimited group meetings for up to 30 hours and include features like cloud storage, file sharing, and live captions.

Asynchronous tools

Sixty-one percent of employees agree that asynchronous work leads to a healthy work-life balance. However, over half (58%) say their company doesn’t have the tools to facilitate asynchronous communication.

Consider adding the following asynchronous tools to your tech stack:

• Slack: Slack is a real-time messaging platform, but you can just as easily adapt it to asynchronous communications. Users can send messages, share files, and record audio and video clips on their own time.

• Loom: Loom lets you record short videos and share them with your team, making it useful for explaining complex topics. With the free plan, you can record up to 25 videos lasting 5 minutes each and see who’s watched them.

Mental health and wellness platforms

Over half of 18- to 34-year-olds who were given the option to work remotely full time say that mental health issues affected their ability to work effectively. Equip your team with platforms for supporting their mental health and wellness. 

Popular mental health and wellness platforms include the following:

• BetterHelp: BetterHelp provides access to over 30,000 licensed therapists. Services are available via text, video, or phone sessions, making access to remote mental health support accessible to remote workers.

• Strava: Strava is a fitness app used to track physical exercises like cycling and running. Users can share their activities and receive “kudos” or likes from other users. Encouraging your remote team to use it for regular exercise can improve both their mental and physical health.

Employee engagement software

Running a remote team is tough. There are a lot of moving parts you need to manage, from onboarding new hires to keeping track of upcoming holidays and distributing payroll.

Remote’s HR Management platform enables you to manage your global workforce and streamline your HR processes from one place. 

Employees can also use the platform’s self-service functionalities to request time off, making it easy for them to get the time they need to recharge and take care of their mental health.

If you manage a global team or are expanding internationally, an HR management platform like Remote can help you consolidate your HR tech stack and ensure global compliance. 

Mental health and remote work are natural allies

Working remotely comes with its own challenges, but overall, remote work offers a host of mental health benefits the office can’t quite match. To realize these advantages, companies must recognize their responsibilities to support employees in unconventional ways.

Offer company-wide days for rest and self-care activities. Let people keep their cameras off during meetings if they feel more comfortable that way. Laugh it off when a pet or a child decides to participate in a serious meeting.

Life has enough hard times. Give your people (and yourself!) some well-deserved breathing room.

Request a demo today to see how you can use Remote’s HR Management platform to manage your global team and keep your HR functions in one place.