The elements of workplace wellness are a combination of daily habits both in work and free time. The amount, type and quality of work and also the physical and mental circumstances have their effect on wellness. In addition to this, also the life habits and personality of the employee act their part in the puzzle.
The work content has changed a lot in many sectors. It’s surprising, how little emphasis has been given to the mobile and remote employees. Constant travelling or working alone without specific work time has a huge influence on health and experienced wellness. There are numerous of small things that help to manage life and increase balance also in mobile and remote work. Even this blog has been written in a train, in a café and at home – not in the office at all.
As Johanna Koroma, the researcher of the Finnish Aalto University says, it would be necessary to create common action models and ways of work related to mobile and remote work. Do I have to respond e-mails during evenings or how could I reserve time to recovery after business trips and too little of sleep? Small better habits and common policies of the workplace can help. Getting enough of sleep, organizing enough free time also during business trips, eating well and regularly and relaxation reflect the life balance which is related also to the long term results of work.
Because the employee is always an individual, the best actions promoting workplace wellness take into account the whole life situation, not only work related issues. The best way to support remote and mobile employees is to bring the coach support to their personal life, together with agreed policies mentioned before. The coaching is possible by a modern and secured remote coaching platform like mCoach, which enables value based coaching from human to human and easier adoption of new habits.
Check out www.movendos.com/en to find out more about remote coaching and http://www.vmwork.net/projects/current-projects/ about Aalto University research on mobile and remote work.
