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For many, working from home is a dream come true. When boundaries become blurred and meetings creep into evenings, however, that dream can turn into a nightmare. If employees (and their leaders) are careless with their remote work strategies, bad outcomes often follow.

Remote work comes naturally to some, but not all. Employees may experience feelings of isolation, mental health problems, reduced productivity, and difficulty separating work from the rest of life.

In this article, we analyze the conversation surrounding remote work and share tips to reduce your employees’ working-from-home stress.

7 ways you can reduce your employees’ work-from-home stress

Employers can reap a host of benefits by helping remote employees manage their stress. Beyond the obvious productivity boost, healthier and happier employees create more positive working environments. Companies with a reputation for putting people first also attract higher-quality talent.

Here are seven ways to help reduce the stresses of working from home:

1. Manage workloads through people-first processes

“Great leaders see themselves less as directors and more as unblockers,” says Darren Murph, head of remote at GitLab. “Stress reduction begins by clearing paths proactively and fostering an atmosphere of psychological trust where a direct report can bring feedback whenever they need assistance.”

No matter how many mental health perks your insurance covers, you cannot therapy away a bad job. Leaders must focus on identifying ways to make work easier to ensure their teams don’t feel unnecessarily swamped. For remote employees, one of the best ways to do this is to focus on outcomes over hours spent working.

“The time spent working is not the important part,” says Remote CEO Job van der Voort. “It’s more about what that person does with the time. Think of it like driving a car: Would you rather drive toward your destination for one hour or spend eight hours idling in the driveway?”

See also: Remote Talks with Zapier CEO Wade Foster

For remote organizations, focusing on outcomes over hours is especially critical. Set clear goals and give employees the freedom they need to reach those goals using the skills you hired them to use.

2. Normalize talking about everyday struggles

Employees who work from home don’t benefit from the same in-person interactions as onsite employees. Especially for more reserved personalities and less tech-savvy personnel, this can easily lead to increased anxiety levels, a sense of isolation, and even a feeling of being abandoned by the company.

In situations like these, employees’ personal struggles can become invisible to leadership, yet have a significant impact on their productivity and well-being.

Team leaders who would normally learn about their team members’ struggles from observation and interaction now must adopt a new strategy: proactively reaching out to their remote employees and exploring any potential personal problems that can interfere with their work. They should not try to be counselors but should lend a hand to people who are struggling.

“Leaders can detect and reduce stress for remote employees by simply asking one question on a weekly basis to each of their direct reports: ‘What obstacles are getting in the way of you doing your best work?’” says Sarah Aviram, author of Remotivation . “The answers may range from personal distractions at home to a lack of decision-making authority in meetings that slows down progress.”

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

GitLab’s Darren Murph agrees.

“Detection can be handled with boring solutions — red/yellow/green check-ins and safe-space 1:1s where thorny issues can be surfaced without fear of judgment.”

So, give your remote employees an avenue to talk about their everyday struggles without fear of judgment. Check in with them regularly, preferably in video meetings, to gauge their level of job satisfaction and help them manage any work/life challenges they may be experiencing.

Checking in with remote employees

3. Encourage employees to structure their days

Onsite employees are used to structuring their lifestyle around work. They have fixed start and end times, fixed meal breaks, and fixed holidays. This structure makes it easier for them to “clock out” and tend to their personal lives.

Employees working from home can have a tougher time distancing themselves from their work, leading to the blurring of the boundaries between work and personal lives and a subsequent loss of work discipline.

“Working from home makes it much harder to delineate work time from personal time. I encourage all of our employees to have a disciplined schedule for when you will work, and when you will not, and to stick to that schedule,” says Dan Springer , CEO of DocuSign.

To help your remote employees better structure their work days and achieve a healthier work-life balance, encourage them to consider the following adjustments to their work patterns:

  • Set fixed start and end times for the workday
  • Observe fixed lunch breaks and rest breaks
  • Engage in some form of physical activity during breaks, such as yoga or a quick bike ride
  • Avoid working on weekends, if not required by the employer

Team leaders can also share productivity techniques such as the Pomodoro Technique to break up large chunks of work into smaller chunks of work/rest blocks.

In the Pomodoro system, you work for about 25 minutes and then take a five-minute break. In between two such blocks of time, you take a longer rest period of 10 or 15 minutes. This consistent schedule with a regular break pattern allows the mind to rest and recharge rather than burn itself out.

4. Eliminate “always on” work hours

Working remotely does not mean working constantly. Just because employees are always near their computers does not mean they should be expected to answer messages outside office hours.

“Remote workers often feel like they have to be ultra-responsive and work more hours to demonstrate that they are, in fact, working,” says Tammy Bjelland, CEO of Workplaceless. “This feeling of being always ‘on’ can lead to stress and burnout.”

The best remote-first organizations limit the concept of “work hours” to shared meeting times. What does it matter if a night owl wants to start and end later? Not everyone lives the same life or operates at peak levels during the same times of the day. Working asynchronously allows companies to be more inclusive of different lifestyles.

Asynchronous work
“Async work isn’t just about productivity,” says Remote CTO Marcelo Lebre. “It’s also about respect. Build processes that allow people to work independently. That way, no one has to wait on someone else to continue a project. Asynchronous work processes will be essential as more companies have people working in different time zones.”

5. Give employees the rest they need

Unlimited PTO is a great perk. However, without a specified number of days off, employees often end up taking less time off than if they had a set number of PTO days.

“We offer unlimited PTO, but we know people tend to feel uneasy about taking the time they need,” says Nadia Vatalidis, Remote’s head of people. Ensuring employees receive the necessary rest is crucial, as is actively promoting the organization's well-being resources to increase visibility and encourage higher participation. “To combat that, Remote enforces a minimum PTO rule. All our employees must take at least the minimum number of days off, and managers are responsible for making sure their team members meet that threshold.”

See also: How to manage an unlimited PTO policy

Days off are not as effective if employees return to a ton of extra work, though. Who can relax on vacation knowing the requests are piling up? To avoid this problem, leaders should find and eliminate bottlenecks within their organizations.

“If everything goes wrong when you take a day off, that’s a problem the organization needs to solve,” says Job van der Voort. “Single points of failure indicate that the company has a structural problem to address. Maybe you need to adjust the processes or hire a new person. This is an area where documenting processes and keeping work in public channels is helpful.”

6. Be open to flexibility

Flexibility in work arrangements is high on the list of perks valued by employees. One recent study found that “ nearly 2 in 3 workers rank workplace flexibility options (location, hours) as important. That’s higher than any other component of total rewards — including competitive bonuses, paid time off, retirement plans, and healthcare options.”

However, simply letting people work from home isn’t enough to create a satisfactory flexible working arrangement. Employees benefit from clear guidelines on how to make the most of their flexibility options while staying within the parameters of the company’s work expectations.

Here are some ways to increase flexibility and reduce stress:

  • Let employees work on a schedule that suits their preferences. For example, allow employees who are more productive in the evening to start at midday and finish after sunset.
  • Measure productivity based on tasks completed, as opposed to time spent at the desk.
  • Invest in time management and communication technology that helps employees stay focused and productive.
As Rahul Goyal, Managing Director at ADP, says: “While hybrid working can represent the best of both working worlds, this shift could require an investment in more sophisticated technology.”

One of these new technologies for empowering remote employees is Remote’s HR Management platform, designed with seamless onboarding and managing of a remote workforce in mind.

For instance, the Remote employee self-service portal lets employees submit and track PTO requests, see upcoming public holidays (as per their local residence), log hours worked, and submit weekly timesheets. They can also add written notes to contextualize tasks completed for each block of time.

7. Make sure leadership sets the example

A minimum PTO policy doesn’t work if leaders don’t follow it themselves. People don’t feel empowered to be transparent about their struggles if leaders never acknowledge their own challenges. For organizations with remote workers to keep stress levels low, leaders must follow the guidelines just as they create them.

“It’s not just about setting expectations verbally or in writing,” says Rhiannon Payne, author of The Remote Work Era . “Some employees might feel uncomfortable taking time off when they’re sick or dealing with personal issues, but seeing their managers take time off and prioritize their own self-care will show them that the organization actually cares and values those things.”

Not only should leaders take time off and be transparent about the stresses they face, but they should also build their teams without making themselves the bottleneck at the top.

Organizations can’t scale or perform when everything has to go through the same channels for approval. Eventually, the leader becomes overwhelmed, bogs down progress, and creates stress for employees who can’t continue working until they get what they need.

“Delegation is about empowering people to make decisions and then trusting them to make good ones,” says Elisa Rossi, Remote’s vice president of growth. “Don’t hire people and then second-guess them. Give them what they need to do their jobs well, then allow them to showcase their skills and experience.”

Empowerment + understanding = less stress

Everyone who has seen the lines between the office and the home blur, knows the unique anxiety that can arise in that environment. Rather than suppress those feelings, organizations should use this opportunity to evaluate their remote work strategies and create systems that provide the psychological safety their teams need.

If you’re just getting started with remote work, check out our brief introduction to remote work for transitioning companies. We hope these resources will help you and your team feel lighter and more confident as you navigate the future of work.

For more on how Remote can help you manage your remote workforce, check out our HR Management platform or speak with one of our experts.