Employee wellbeing in a remote working environment

Abstract

This bachelor’s thesis investigates the effect of remote work on employee wellbeing. Due to Covid-19, the number of people working remotely has risen in the past years. Remote work environment has created new challenges on the wellbeing of employees. Leaders play a big part in this. The objective of this thesis is to examine how leaders can ensure the welfare of their employees in a remote environment and what type of leadership styles are suitable for remote work. The research focuses on the social wellbeing aspect. In addition, the different challenges of remote work prosperity will be addressed. The goal was to provide a handbook for leaders to simplify the steps to ensure the wellbeing of their employees in remote work.

This thesis includes a theoretical part, which focuses on employee empowerment and leadership in remote working environments. The research was conducted as a desk study. A handbook was attached to the appendices.

The findings of the research show that leadership has a big effect on employee’s emotional health overall. The remote setting has benefits for employee wellbeing but still needs special attention from leaders. Challenges rising from the remote setting are usually related to isolation, the lack of belonging and managing your own work capacity. Creating trust among the team, communication, keeping the connections within the community and knowing your team are the crucial parts when ensuring the wellbeing of employees in remote settings. Different leadership styles were investigated and there were suitable elements from various styles that can work well in remote work environments.