Mental health hits the headlines
In April and May, there was a huge focus on health and safety from the various experts in space planning and design. At that time, the idea was that we would try to more or less operate by old-world, pre-COVID rules with some additional protections in place. As you’re now well aware, that concept was quickly overshadowed by the reality that most people wouldn’t be coming back to the office anytime soon.
What caught my attention over the last two weeks was again a focus on health, but this time the emphasis was distinctly personal — specifically the intersection of mental and physical health with workplace policy.
NPR’s article Redesigning the Office to Maximize Health had this especially relevant section:
Organizational psychologist Cristina Banks says that workers will be drawn to in-person work only to the extent that the office addresses psychological needs that the pandemic undercut. Banks is the director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Workplaces, a global research center at the University of California, Berkeley. Safety, belonging and autonomy are three of the primary drivers of an individual's sense of well-being, she says, and all three have been "obliterated" by the pandemic.
I see two continually emerging themes that all work experience stakeholders should incorporate into their WX strategy:
Mental health is a huge factor for work performance and leaders can have an impact even outside of the clinical world.
Overall health and wellness as a key feature in the workplace design that contributes to making our workspaces effective and attractive.
Mental Health — I wrote a short Linkedin piece about initiatives that business leaders can adopt to help their team members keep a good headspace. The reality is that the spectrum of stress and anxiety everyone is facing right now is novel and uncharted. To put this in the context of approaching the office, we need to understand that everything from safety to home logistics impact whether an office is a burden or a benefit. My sister told me that her company created a well-intended policy to make returning to the office safe, but the policy included a schedule of A and B teams, no kitchen amenities, and some surveillance of compliance. Needless to say, she opted out given that it would be more stressful than beneficial to her. The office option can’t be more stressful than staying home.
Healthy Office Design — Being an industry outsider, my take is that most articles are written about aspirational office design or outlier companies making big changes and investments, but maybe I’m wrong. What I imagine is becoming a quick reality, is that if we are going to shift office design away from open office general usage towards more specific modes of work, we now have an opportunity to use the space differently. Health and wellness as a center point of office design can become a key space differentiator and a way to attract people back to office environments. The WELL certified standard is compelling (though a bit overwhelming), but I predict it will gain more traction over the coming years. This could be an easy win for converting underutilized office space.
The What’s Working News Feed:
NPR: Redesigning the Office to Maximize Health: This article meanders through tactics in office design to policy, but has some good overall themes to think about when talking to our stakeholders.
WSJ: Goodbye Open Office. Hello ‘Dynamic Workplace’: Sorry about the paywall...however, WSJ getting in the mix means that the topic of office redesign is on a lot of companies’ minds. This reinforces the idea of supporting modes of work and not the office as the de facto home for work.
Work Design: Applying A Holistic, Health-Focused Design Approach To Built Environment: Great nuggets pulled from Healthcare and Retail space design. Both showcase ‘happiness’ as a key indicator of success in the response to the design.
