Because of the flexibility inherent to remote work, the workday looks a lot different for remote workers. So you have to keep their needs in mind. For starters, remote workers run the risk of becoming lost in their work. While some people believe that these employees don’t do as much work as they did before in offices, in fact, there is a real danger that remote workers actually do too much. Because they aren’t bound to normal office hours, remote workers might feel tempted to do a little extra here and there, and because of this, they can eventually burn out.
To help avoid burnout, you might consider the following tips:
encourage living a healthy and diverse lifestyle.
Let your remote employees enjoy and not be tempted to work too much. After all, you want your employees to be happy and productive; to ensure this, you don’t want them spending all day in their home office. Working out and other leisure activities might fall by the wayside if an employee lacks the social contacts that come with working in an office.
Trust Your remote employees
If you have uncertainty about whether or not the work will get completed at the same level as if they were in the office, you need to boost your trust. To do that, set clear expectations. Everyone has a different idea of what doing something "quickly" or "well" means, so you need to set some measurables expectations and rules such as emails must be responded to within specific time, or use calls for urgent matters.
Focus On results and Goals, Not Activities
Another boost to your trust, keep your eye on the final destination. So, if we are meeting our goals, then great. If not, we need to get deeper into the root cause. In other words, goals will trigger their activities. They will fit their activities to meet the expected goals.
After all, you can’t see burnout symptoms in front of you as you would if your employee was working in the office with you. So, be extra careful not to encourage this kind of behavior.