With lockdown still in place and returning to the office a distant prospect, many employees "are fading and fading fast”.
That’s according to Gina London, a former CNN anchor and Sunday Independent journalist.
She also helps leaders connect with and support their employees, and offered some solutions for employers to help remote workers during the pandemic.
"So many of us right now are like that Ever Given ship in the Suez Canal, we're just stuck, we've lost our motivation, our passion, our purposes as we continue to work from home," she told Down to Business with Bobby Kerr.
"As we are rounding down to the second quarter, and we can't turn our clocks four months ahead, if you haven't already, I'm encouraging my companies and my clients to conduct a much-needed check-in.
"I would say ask, listen and communicate judiciously, the number one thing I think is that employers need to ask.
"I recommend conducting a team survey with a lot of open-ended questions to help understand better how people are feeling."
Ms London said she is working with a technology multinational based in the US which has 7,000 employees who spent a lot of money on wellness for their remote workers last year.
This included remote yoga, as well as senior leadership speaking about positivity and encouraging staff.
But when the company's profit margins declined, bonus packages were reduced and employees who left weren't replaced.
When it came to the firm's annual virtual town hall in February, the same positive messaging didn't land with workers, instead, they wanted to know what was really going on inside the company.
"You've got to ask them and not treat them the same way...and once you ask, listen," Ms London added.
Transparency, one-on-one meetings, and finding ways to change or reduce workloads will all help employees, she advised.
A woman using a laptop on a dining room table set up as a remote office to work from home. Image: Joe Giddens/PA Wire/PA ImagesThe same measures used in 2020, like virtual coffee meetings or virtual happy hours, won't work as well this year because people are tired.
"I think it's particularly hard in Europe when you're looking around to the United States or to other countries where the vaccine rollout is happening quicker, things are opening up more quickly, especially for companies that we're still locked up personally and professionally, the people are finding it really difficult," she said.
While there is a responsibility on team leaders and employers, employees must also maintain a sense of collaboration, innovation or networking.
"Don't just wait and hope for people to reach in, it's tough, but we also have to keep reaching out," she added.
