How to Make Remote Employees Feel Connected with Wellness

Remote work has changed the way the world does business, and while many employees prefer hybrid and fully remote positions, research shows they’re losing a sense of connection with their coworkers – and that can negatively impact their wellbeing as well as business outcomes. Conversely, a strong sense of connection can foster wellbeing, positive work environments, and business success.

Consider these insights:

• 52% of employees would prioritize great relationship with colleagues over a 10% salary increasethough 66% say they do not have strong connections with their coworkers (HubSpot Hybrid Work Report)
• 53% of remote workers say it’s difficult to feel connected to coworkerssuggesting remote settings require effective communication and team-building strategies (Forbes Advisor)
• Just 28% of fully remote employees feel connected to organizational mission and purpose – down 36% from 2021 (Gallup)
• Connected employees are 68% less likely to experience burnout (HR Cloud/Gallup)
• 96% of executives say connected employees are more motivated and productive and 75% say employees would give up a lot to work for a company where they feel more connected. C-suite executives say a sense of employee connection is their #1 challenge (Airspeed/Forbes)

Clearly, employee connection is critical for success, but how can employers foster connectivity among remote employees? No one wants more meetings, after all.

A well-designed wellness program can bridge the gap between working from home and employee connectivity. Wellness programs give employees shared objectives and opportunities to champion one another outside of traditional work roles. They foster a sense of community and belonging, and they also influence significant health benefits and business success.

With those goals in mind, here are ten ways to make employees feel connected and drive culture and togetherness with wellness programs.

RELATED: 6 Strategies for Successful Wellness with Remote Workers

Summary

10 Ways to Make Remote Employees Feel Connected with Wellness Programs

The following ideas can help your organization address the challenges of maintaining wellness in a remote work environment. Use them to identify opportunities and strategies for promoting mental health, physical activity, and social connection among distributed teams while creating a supportive work culture with tools that facilitate wellness. Here’s how to stay connected when working remotely.

1. Friendly Competition

Friendly competition is a powerful way to help remote employees feel connected. Individual and team-based challenges with gamification, leaderboards, and social tools inspire employees to engage and interact, support one another, and improve their fitness levels.

Organized challenges based on the six pillars of wellness are great ways to foster friendly competition, while social features make it easy for employees to connect (learn more about social features below). Challenge ideas include:

• Nutritional and healthy eating challenges
• Daily exercise challenges
• H20 challenges (drink enough water daily)
• Random acts of kindness challenges
• Step challenges
• Sleep challenges
• Financial wellness challenges

RELATED: Fun Workplace Wellness Challenge Ideas

2. Virtual Activities

Virtual activities are among the best wellness ideas for remote employees because they bring employees together without requiring them to be in the same physical location. The key to successful virtual activities is to make them interesting, fun, thought-provoking, and/or otherwise valuable to employees.

For example, WellSteps has a full library of behavior change campaigns every employee participates in virtually. Participants receive email reminders to complete weekly activities, and even though the activities are virtual, all employees are doing them together.

Other virtual wellness activities for remote employees include:

• Lunch ‘n learns
• Online health coaching and fitness classes
• Online nutritional coaching and healthy cooking classes
• Mental health workshops
• Financial planning workshops

RELATED: 7 Ways a Virtual Wellness Program Makes Employees Healthy

3. Wellness App with Social Features

Wellness apps with social features make it easy for employees to encourage one another and share successes – as well as exchange some friendly banter.

For example, the WellSteps app features team rooms within team-based campaigns where employees can:

• View real-time challenge leaderboards
• Chat with one another
• Post pictures and videos
• Post recent milestones achieved
• Like and comment on one another’s posts to offer encouragement (or perhaps some good-natured trash talking)
• Share invites to upcoming wellness events

RELATED: 10 Ways a Worksite Wellness App Can Make Wellness Easy

4. Organize In-Person Events

Remote employees can still participate in in-person events, which can be a great way to foster lasting connections. Host events at the office or invite remote workers to join your team at community events.

Some companies will conduct fully on-site open enrollment meetings or host breakout groups that often include information about their wellness programs.

Other in-person wellness activities for remote employees include:

• 5K charity walk/runs
• Group hikes or kayaking
• Wellness retreats
• Sports leagues (pickleball, volleyball, softball, etc.)
• Company picnics with healthy dishes, volleyball, tug of war, sack races, and other activities

RELATED: 28 Corporate Wellness Ideas and Activities

5. Include Remote Employees on Your Wellness Committee

The best wellness programs involve employee-led wellness committees who meet to plan events, challenges, and other activities. Reserve a couple of spots on your committee for remote employees to get them involved with the program design and represent the unique needs, desires, and barriers their fellow remote workers may have. Here are three options for including remote employees:

• Ask remote workers to come into the office for monthly meetings
• Allow remote employees to videoconference into meetings
• Hold meetings off-site at local restaurants or parks

RELATED: How a Worksite Wellness Committee Helps Programs

6. Recognize Remote Employee Wellness Efforts

Remote and hybrid employees aren’t in the building every day, so be careful to avoid overlooking them when recognizing your team’s wellness efforts. Ideas include:

• Showcase remote employee wellness successes on your website, in email newsletters, and on social media
• Encourages on-site staff to congratulate remote employees via email, phone calls, or social media
• Ensure remote employees have access to your wellness app so they appear on leaderboards and can participate in social circles

RELATED: 18 Wellness Program Incentive Ideas

7. Create Virtual Groups

Many wellness programs foster idea-sharing and relationship-building with interest-specific groups. Of course, these groups don’t need to meet on-site – videoconferencing, social platforms, and even email will do – so you can create virtual groups that make it easy for remote employees to participate. Examples include:

• Healthy cooking and recipe groups
• Film groups
• Book groups
• Walking groups that meet outside of work

RELATED: 5 Secrets to Successful Corporate Wellness Programs

8. Communicate Effectively

Effective communication is vital to wellness program both success, and that goes for on-site and remote employees.

• Enroll remote employees to receive all emails, texts, and other notifications so they don’t miss important wellness events and incentives
• Encourage employees to engage and champion each other’s achievements
• Invite remote employees to attend wellness events, virtual and in person

RELATED: How Leaders Can Communicate Support for Wellness

9. Give Remote Employees Wellness Rewards and Incentives

Employee connection has proven benefits, but some employees respond best to incentives for participating in wellness to achieve that level of connection. Be sure to:

• Include remote employees in wellness rewards programs
• Offer the same incentives to remote employees as you to do on-site staff
• Provide a way to sync wearable activity trackers with your wellness app so remote employees can easily track progress and earn rewards

RELATED: Top Employee Benefits Brokers with Stellar Wellness Programs

Community volunteering is a great way to bring on-site and remote staff together and foster connections through shared causes. You can ask employees to organize events based on the causes they support to give them ownership and secure buy-in.

When companies select a health-based charity to sponsor, they can learn a lot about their employees (both remote and on-site), and foster deeper connections and common bonds between employees.

Wellness-related community volunteering ideas include:

• Organize charity walks, runs, or bike rides
• Start or help with community gardens planted with healthy vegetables
• Volunteer at food banks and promote healthy nutrition
• Provide companionship at local nursing homes and hospitals
• Host a health fair and invite community members for free health screenings

RELATED: 21 Summer Wellness Ideas: Tips for a Happy & Healthy Summer

How to Choose a Wellness Program that Supports Remote Workers

Success depends on choosing a wellness program that supports remote workers. Some programs have only recently started to consider remote employees, and their features often seem like afterthoughts and aren’t completely integrated, while others – such as WellSteps – have always had a strategy to tailor their programs to include remote employees.

In fact, all of WellSteps’ employees are 100% remote, so we understand what organizations need to keep employees connected through wellness.

Look for programs that cater to remote workers with:

• Mobile wellness apps
• Activity tracking
• Virtual events
• Social functions

Walking The Talk

At WellSteps, some of our own employee connection initiatives include:

• Quarterly “just for fun” meetings where we play interactive games that help us get to know one another
• Employee spotlights for all new hires that include photos, favorites, and bucket list items
• “Guess Who” games at every staff meeting in which we’re given clues to try to guess which employee they represent. These games always inspire smiles, laughter, stories, and facts about the highlighted employees
• Regional outings in which remote employees who live close to one another meet for breakfast, brunch, or lunch
• Encouraging video camera usage in all our meetings as you can learn a lot about people when you can see them
• Company retreats in which all employees travel to one location for a few days of work and fun

Though not all of these are wellness-based, they do lend insight into our company culture and some of the ways we address the challenges of fully remote work. Ultimately, these features make it easy for remote employees to feel connected because they help provide a seamless, intuitive experience whether employees participate in the wellness program in the office or at home.