Supporting team members with motivation and wellbeing remotely

If you read my last blog you’ll know that I’ve identified 6 areas where leaders and managers are finding challenges as they adjust to managing their teams virtually. These are in the areas of managing and measuring work, team cohesiveness and a sense of belonging, connection, relationships and communication, engagement, motivation and wellbeing, meeting effectiveness and technology.

Last month I shared some tips to help you ‘Manage and measure work’. This month I’m focusing on tips to enable you to support team members with motivation and wellbeing remotely.

What are the issues?

Some of the issues in this area identified by managers include that some team members are demotivated or less engaged because they are struggling to adapt to managing their day at home either because they find it hard to focus or because they feel conflicted by having other responsibilities to factor in too. Managers have also shared that some team members can be struggling with wellbeing but they find it hard to help sometimes because it can be difficult to gauge a team member’s stress and some people don’t ask for help.

Tips to help

With the above in mind, here are two tips that you may find helpful:

(1) ‘Give permission’ for team members to manage their day as they need to

At home, your team members are likely juggling work with a number of other commitments such as home schooling, handling deliveries, making lunch or letting the dog out. Helping them to know that this is ok and that it’s not about the hours that they work but their productivity and output when they do work goes a long way to helping someone be able to focus better when they are working. Those new to virtual working can feel guilty about not always being at their desks but that’s not practical at the moment, nor is it healthy.

If you can share how you take a walk to break up your morning or that you are not available after a certain time due to family commitments it gives permission for your team members to do the same. Some teams have found sharing their calendars and including ‘not available’ times useful (e.g. regular lunch breaks, exercise slot while there is still daylight, the hour when setting a child up for their home study).

(2) Agree two-way expectations regarding wellbeing and motivation

Some team members don’t like to bother you as a manager because they think you will be too busy or because they assume that they should be able to cope and can’t reveal that they are struggling. Such assumptions are not helpful to open and transparent two-way communication between you as a manager and your team members.

When working virtually, it helps to be explicit about expectations and a good way to do this in this area is to:

1. Let your team members know that you recognise that working at home/remotely can be difficult at times for some and you’d like to know when they are struggling and encourage them to call you or message you. If you are busy at that moment you will contact them as soon as you can when you are free.
   
2. Give your team some questions to reflect on individually such as:
   What is going well for you about working from home?
   What are you finding harder about working from home?
   What are you enjoying most about your work?
   Are there any areas of your work that you don’t enjoy? Why?
   What am I currently doing that supports you that you’d like me to continue or do more of?
   What could I do that would support you in being engaged and motivated working at home?
   
3. Take time yourself to reflect on a few areas for each team member in relation to your expectations of them such as:
   What is the team member currently doing with respect to how they communicate with me that I value and want to see continue?
   What could this team member do to improve communication with me?
   
4. Set up a 1-1 with each team member where they share their reflections, you share yours and you decide together some key ways of working that will support them and give you what you need.

If you’ve been working virtually for a while you will likely have other tips related to supporting team member wellbeing, engagement and motivation that work for you. Do share them in the comments section for others to benefit from. I’ll share some tips for other virtual management challenges in a future blog.