Remote Working Ultimate Guide: Wellness, Safety, & Risks Assessment

Whether you are someone who is starting to work remotely or someone who manages others who will from distance online, this free guide I think will help you!

If you want to save time because you are busy, you can download the free e-book version directly below and read it later.

>> DOWNLOAD the FREE 36-page eBook on ‘How to be a Digital Nomad?

So, let’s get started.

What is Remote Working?

Remote working is where an employee or business owner works literally from anywhere in the world.

You can work remotely from home or you might be traveling and spending large amounts of time abroad.

Very often, the term ‘remote working’ is used to refer to people who work online, using internet access to do their work digitally.

As a remote worker, you might sometimes go to the main office where other colleagues are based, but it is not necessary for this, to be a remote worker.

The benefits of working remotely are many including:

• decreased stress levels
• lower commuting costs
• greater flexibility, and so on.

But there are also a few drawbacks such:

• a lack of face-time with colleagues can lead to feelings of isolation
• and it can be difficult to stay focused when you’re not in an office environment.

We’ll discuss all of these pros and cons and solutions in what follows!

Remote & Working From Home Guidelines & Risk Assessment

You will likely fall into one of three categories when reading this. You will either be:

• An individual such as a digital nomad who is traveling and will be working online and will be WFA (Working From Anywhere)
• An employer or HR department that is managing an employee/s who will work remotely
• Or an individual WFH (Working From Home)

Whatever your interest is in remote working, the following information and documents (including a ‘Remote Working Risk Assessment’ Free PDF) hopefully will be useful.

Well-Being Assessment and Checklist

Setting up your workstation and work area at home is very important.

Note: Depending on the budgets involved, you might be able to ask for financial help with the following from your company.

a) Are Your Arms Parallel to the Height of the Desk?

Research has shown that bad seating posture and habits can lead to a range of health issues including musculoskeletal issues.

Are you arms parallel to the desk?

• If not, do you have an adjustable chair? Or are you able to buy, ask, or be provided with one? Can you use a cushion to help?
• If you are home-based, then having a separate standard keyboard and mouse from your laptop keyboard is also highly recommended.

If you are traveling, then what we use and recommend is a folding keyboard, so that we can travel light but still use a keyboard.

b) Raised Monitor to Eye Level

It is also essential to ensure that the monitor is at eye level.

You want to avoid leaning forward all day and developing back issues.

• Use either a standard home monitor rather than your laptop screen
• Or use your laptop screen but use an adjustable laptop riser

c) Do Your Feet Reach the Floor Okay

You should also be able to have your feet flat on the floor.

If necessary though you can use an under-desk footrest.

Online Security and Remote Working

It is increasingly important to ensure that you work securely online both for your own and your company’s security.

Consider doing the following to become better protected:

a) Use a VPN (Virtual Private Network)

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a service that creates a secure, encrypted connection between your computer and the Internet.

This protects your data from being intercepted by third parties, whether you’re connected to public Wi-Fi or not.

Whether you’re in the office or on the road, a VPN can help keep your information safe and secure.

If you are new to the term VPN do not be worried as a VPN is both very simple to use and to install.

You basically just install it and just open it and it runs in the background on your computer.

If you are working for a company remotely online, then the chances are that you already have been provided with information by your company – including on how to download and run the VPN.

If you are self-employed or a freelancer working remotely, then a VPN is extremely cheap and then the following are good options:

b) Anti-Virus Software

Chances are that you are already using anti-virus software on your computer. If not though, then why not?

Without anti-virus software running on your machine, you are leaving yourself wide open to your computer being hacked.

If you think of this in real life, not having an anti-virus to secure your computer is akin to leaving the front door of your house open all the time, so that anyone can walk in.

• Bitdefender is an excellent option and is one that tops many reviews.
• Norton antivirus and McAfee antivirus are also both worth considering.

If you are working online for a company, you may need to use the recommended software that they provide.

Either way – DO make sure you are running antivirus!

c) Be Super Careful Opening Attachments

Be incredibly careful what attachments you open.

If you receive an email from someone you are not familiar with, be ultra careful when opening any attachments on the email.

If you are unsure, then DO NOT open the attachment.

Doing so might lead to your computer being infected with a virus.

d) Extra Security

• Always put your computer into sleep mode if working from a public location such as a coworking space or cafe, if you are temporarily leaving your computer, even if you can see your computer from a distance, i.e. the coffee counter.

10 Tips for Improving the Work/Life Balance as a Remote Worker

• Do something at the end of the day that is non-work related – Go for a run, go into another room or outdoors and read a book, meet up with friends, or take the dog for a walk. Do something completely unrelated to work.
• Decide when you are most productive – there tends always to be a time when we are most productive. Use this time period to tackle bigger tasks.
• Set an alarm and get up from your desk at least once an hour. Even if you just stand up and do 10 or 20 squats for one minute, or if you stand up to literally walk up a flight of stairs and back down again, it will help your body.
• When talking to someone on the phone stand up. Use this time to stretch the legs.
• Do not stay sat at the desk at lunchtime. Get up. Go for a walk. Avoid eating at your desk.
• Make an effort to have regular contact with your colleagues
• Try to create a definite boundary where you work, i.e. a location away from where family or other people will use the exact same space

How to Manage a Remote Team Online

1. Encourage employees to take breaks and look after their health.

Stress the importance of taking breaks and looking after one’s health, so employees will feel more motivated to do so.

2. Provide training

Anything from being able to use tools such as new software, to any soft skills they may need to work from home.

Also, other ways you can provide training is through mentoring schemes and virtual shadowing (which will also help employees to create better connections with each other).

3. Make sure the office set-up is safe and ergonomic

You can either send an assessor to your employees’ homes or ask your employees to self-assess by sending them questionnaires.

4. Provide mental health support

Some big companies have in-house counselors whom employees can ask to see.

If your company does not have the resources to employ their own counselors, you can always try to raise mental health awareness through training and/or other support schemes.

5. Empower and reward employees

Just because employees work from home and you cannot see them, it does not mean that they do not want to be appreciated.

Empowering refers to allowing employees some ownership over their job and the ability to make certain decisions without having to ask a superior for every little thing.

Rewarding means appreciating a job well done. A manager can do this through praise and through giving financial or physical rewards (such as vouchers).

6. Encourage virtual social events

You want employees to build trust in each other.

Socializing is a good way for staff to get to know each other and it leads to more trust.

So, even if employees do not take the initiative, as an employer you can start organizing virtual social events and encourage staff to take part.

7. Set clear goals and procedures

Setting clear goals and ways of working is always a good practice, but it is even more important for people who work from home.

This is because employees who work from home lack the continuous feedback from their managers that they might otherwise have when working face-to-face with them.

8. Communicate regularly and clearly via a variety of media (one-to-one and team meetings)

It is important to schedule regular communication and use as many different types of media as possible, as every type of medium serves a different purpose.

Regular communication needs to be scheduled; otherwise, it is easy to forget to get in touch when working remotely.

Lack of communication can lead to an employee feeling isolated and dissociated from the rest of the team.

In addition, a line manager might not realize if and when a member of staff needs support.

9. Provide up-to-date technology and IT support

This will prevent your employees from feeling frustrated.

Furthermore, ensuring that software and hardware are as up-to-date as possible, can help to reduce security flaws.

10. Set clear expectations for working hours

This has to do with your employees’ life-work balance.

In the same way that an employee needs to be transparent, it is also important for the employer to let staff know if there are specific time slots when staff needs to be available, due to business needs (if this is the case).

Of course, you still need to allow your staff time for breaks and not burden them with unreasonable demands to avoid burnout.

11. Encourage teams to stay as connected as possible

This is important to improve the ability of staff to cooperate and communicate, to improve socialization and trust, and to avoid feelings of isolation.

12. Be alert to signs of distress

Managers need to be able to listen to their staff members and pick up signs of distress.

You might want to consider providing staff training in areas such as in:

• How to manage virtual teams
• Wellbeing when working from home
• How to give effective feedback

13. Give information about the support available

There is no point in providing support if employees do not know it is there.

So, make sure to advertise and communicate as clearly and as widely as possible what support options are available for staff.

If you have a company Intranet area, this is a good place to provide this information.

14. Firm up a working-from-home policy

A policy is useful to summarize expectations and what support is available.

Also, the advantage of having a policy is that staff can refer to it if in doubt.
A working-from-home policy can include things such as:

• Working patterns
• Communication plans
• Instructions on setting up a safe work-home environment and an ergonomic workstation
• Links to support on health and wellbeing
• Sickness policy
• Overtime policy
• Procedures on dealing with security issues
• How to report personal injury and damage to the company’s property

Training Managers in How to Manage Virtual Teams

If you are looking to provide training to managers on how to manage virtual teams, I recommend Dr Valeria Lo Iacono’s training materials for trainers and teachers – see below.

Useful Tools for Remote Working

• Transferring files securely
• Asana – Managing personal and professional tasks with project management software
• Zoom and Microsoft Teams to talk remotely
• Basecamp – is an extremely popular project management toolkit that you can use to bring everything you need into one place. Bring the chat, meetings info, to-do lists, documents, and files into one place with one interface!
• Troop Messenger – is a fantastic tool used by many companies of all sizes for managing remote work communications. It enables colleagues, for example, to easily chat by messenger about work tasks, to share files, and to do audio and video calls.
• Slack – I suspect you might have already heard of Slack if you are involved with managing teams digitally? Slack is one of the leading tools that facilitate digital team management.
• Google Drive – an easy way to share documents
• Dropbox – an easy to use solution for backing up documents (and sharing documents)
• Kickidler – For managing employee time management (if it is needed) Kickidler is a popular tool.

Employers Checklist

• Download the Remote Employees Checklist – checklist for each individual remote worker to complete
• Employers Checklist – as an employer, do you have a plan in place to support your remote staff?

Difficulties and Challenges of Home Working

i) Blurred boundaries between work and home life

When you work from home, it can be harder to separate your home life from your working life.

For example, your family members may be distracting you or you might be tempted to work longer hours than you otherwise would.

It can be easy to get into the mindset of not wanting to switch off until a task is completed or wanting to answer just one more email.

ii) Lack of structure

This point is connected with the point above. When working from home, it is easy to let yourself go and forget to structure your day, so your home life and work-life blend together.

Also, without a structure, it is hard for some people to find the motivation to do things.

iii) Feeling of isolation

Working from home can feel pretty lonely, without colleagues to chat with and without the need to get out and about.

iv) Lack of collaboration

When you work face-to-face with other people, it is easier to exchange ideas, ask questions and come up with solutions together.

v) Taking less care of health & fitness.

If you do not need to go out at all, you will have fewer chances to move around and walk as you normally would do.

So, it is essential to build time into your home working routine for moving around.

vii) Social anxiety

This could be caused by the lack of face-to-face interactions with people.

You might start wondering what other people think in terms of the amount of work you do.

So, you might feel the need to prove that you are working by being available at all times and showing you are busy.

viii) Difficulties in doing the work

This may be due to a lack of training on certain applications that allow you to work remotely, or difficulties in asking for help when you are struggling.

Never be afraid to reach out to your manager (if you have one) to seek the training you need.

Benefits of Home Working

i) Flexibility

When you work from home, you can have more control over your time.

For example, you can decide when you want to take your breaks or you can juggle other commitments around your working day.

As long as you get your work done, you may have a certain amount of flexibility.

ii) Better work-life balance

As a result, of having a more flexible schedule, you will be able to achieve a better work-life balance.

iii) Home comforts

As you are at home, it will be easier for you to have access to all the comforts you need.

For example, you can have complete control over the temperature and light in the room, the ability to listen to music as you want, access to your own bathroom, access to your own kitchen stocked with all the things you need, etc.

iv) Reduced time and money wastage

When working from home, you do not need to travel to commute.

This can save you quite a lot of time and money.

v) Easier access for people with disabilities

As there is no need to commute, working from home makes it easier for people with disabilities for whom getting around might be a challenge.

It is essential still though to ensure that those with disabilities who work remotely are provided with the right tools and equipment.

vi) Greater productivity

Some people may be more productive working from home, due to factors such as having fewer distractions, fewer interruptions from colleagues, reduced stress by not having to commute, and being exposed to minimal office politics.