15 Wellness Activities for Remote Employees
Remote work has real benefits: flexible hours, no commute and more control over the working day. But it also has a downside. Research shows that working from home can reduce overall wellbeing – physical health suffers from inactivity, and mental health from fewer interactions with colleagues.1 Blending work and personal life in the same space can make it hard to switch off, too.
The good news is that employers and HR teams can do a lot to help. Here are 15 wellness activities for remote employees that support body, mind and team spirit.
Table of Contents
Physical Wellness Activities
1. 1. Virtual Fitness Challenges
Remote employees often move much less than they used to. A virtual fitness challenge – for example, reaching a step goal over a few weeks – gets people moving wherever they are. Start with an entry-level challenge so everyone can join and build the habit.
2. 2. Walk-and-Talk Calls
Not every call needs a camera. Encourage people to take one-to-ones and catch-ups as walks – here are the benefits of walk-and-talk meetings.
3. 3. Live Stretch or Workout Breaks
A 10-minute stretch session over video, led by a colleague or an instructor, breaks up long screen days.
4. 4. Home Office Ergonomics Support
A good chair, screen height and lighting prevent back and neck pain. Many companies offer a home office budget or a quick ergonomics checklist.
5. 5. Distance Challenges Between Locations
Walk the distance between your offices or team members' cities together – a fun way to connect people across the map.
Mental Wellness Activities
1. 6. Mindfulness and Breathing Sessions
Short guided sessions help people reset between meetings. Mindfulness challenges also work well as non-fitness wellness challenges.
2. 7. Telehealth and Teletherapy Access
Virtual doctor visits and online therapy make it easier for remote employees to get care without taking half a day off. Consider adding them to your health benefits.
3. 8. Encourage People to Take Their Days Off
Remote workers often feel they should always be available. Taking time off prevents burnout and helps people recover from work stress – make sure leaders encourage it and set the example.
4. 9. Focus Time and Meeting-Free Blocks
Protected time without calls reduces stress and gives people space for deep work, breaks and movement.
5. 10. Digital Detox Challenge
Challenge teams to log off at a set time or take screen-free lunch breaks for a week.
Social Wellness Activities
1. 11. Virtual Happy Hours
Informal online get-togethers – a lunch, coffee or end-of-week drink – with icebreakers like conference call bingo (“a dog appears on screen”, “sorry, I was on mute”) or online party games.
2. 12. Virtual Coffee Pairings
Randomly pair colleagues from different teams for a 15-minute chat each week.
3. 13. Team Challenges
Team-based challenges give remote colleagues a shared goal and something to talk about. Find more virtual team building activities.
4. 14. Online Cooking or Learning Sessions
A healthy cooking class or a short talk on sleep or stress combines learning with time together.
5. 15. Recognition and Celebrations
Celebrate milestones, birthdays and challenge results publicly. Remote employees miss the small moments of recognition that happen naturally in an office.
Tips for Remote Wellness Programs That Work
- Keep joining effortless – use tools that sync automatically with people's phones and watches.
- Respect time zones – favor activities people can do whenever suits them.
- Mix individual, team and company-wide goals to suit different personalities.
- Plan across the year rather than relying on one-off events.
- Be clear about data privacy – share only anonymized, team-level results. When PwC offered 1,000 fitness trackers to remote employees in 2020, they were claimed within four hours; employees saw their own data, while the company only saw anonymized, combined results.
For more, read setting up wellness challenges for remote workers and how to engage remote employees.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How can I support the wellbeing of remote employees?
Combine physical activities (fitness challenges, movement breaks), mental health support (telehealth, focus time, encouraging time off) and social connection (virtual events, team challenges).
2. What are fun wellness activities for remote teams?
Step or distance challenges between locations, virtual happy hours, coffee pairings and online workout breaks are easy to organize and popular.
Bring Your Remote Team Together With YuMuuv
YuMuuv brings activity data from different devices together in one place, connecting with Apple Health, Health Connect and Garmin, so remote teams can take part in challenges wherever they are. Book a demo to see how it works.
