Awareness around mental health and wellness is finally finding a foothold in our social consciousness. And because most people spend the largest part of their day, and in fact most of their lifetime at work, the effect that the company culture has on an employee’s health is far-reaching, and in turn affects the workplace at large.

But how do you help to manage mental health and well being in the office, when you aren’t seeing everyone face to face?

As a business owner it is your responsibility to create and nurture company culture, but how can you do that without real-life interaction, or when there is high anxiety in the workplace? Here are 5 tips to creating a culture and fostering mental well being across your remote workforce and stressed-out employees:

Sync your calendars. Working from home can create a blurriness between work and life that can make some of your employees feel lost. Keeping a schedule that holds everyone accountable for their availability will help prevent workdays from devolving into a timeless void like that of an everlit casino. Make sure employees block out time for breaks on your shared calendar so everyone has an expectation of availability. For example, they should block out time whenever they can’t be available for a face-to-face meeting with a 15-minute heads-up within the 8-hour workday. This will also prevent embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions and bad hair days.

Encourage frequent breaks - During stressful times, your employees will be easily distracted. To prevent a loss in productivity, have them take regular breaks to check their social media, personal emails, texts, etc, so that they can put their own limits on those activities.

Schedule a daily ‘cameras on’ team call - Video conferencing has its limitations, but for a hybrid or remote workforce it can be great for maintaining company culture through those face-to-face interactions, even if they are virtual. In a workplace, these interactions happen organically by the proverbial water cooler, but in lieu of that, make sure to create that time for your team. Don’t ostracize those who keep their cameras off, but make note of frequent violations. It’s not necessarily because they aren’t working -- it may be because of other debilitating anxiety that can be addressed professionally and respectfully.

Team building - Just because you can’t be together all the time now doesn’t mean you can’t still have team building exercises.  There are several online platforms for team building, but one that is particularly fun is the Jackbox Games platform for multiplayer trivia and interactive games that will keep your employees engaged.  There are many others.

Encourage physical fitness - Implementing a virtual physical activity challenge is a great way to get employees moving their bodies in intentional ways, plus it’s another way to get them to engage with each other (even if remotely). It’s also an opportunity to increase awareness of any wellness benefits your company may already have.

Establishing company culture is difficult as it is - to create that culture during a global pandemic when most of your staff is either working remotely from home or socially distancing in the office is an extra tough prospect.

But as Chester Elton and Nabeela Ixtala have noted, “Companies that have made well-being a strategic focus are demonstrating a 2x - 4x ROI for every dollar put toward these initiatives.” It’s good for the bottom line AND it’s just the right thing to do.