Ergonomic Furniture

Biophilic Design

Acoustic Solutions

Create a Layout that Promotes Interaction

Embrace Natural Light and Outdoor Spaces

Provide Versatile Furniture and Technology

Add Color and Personal Touches

Prioritize Wellness and Comfort

1. Choose furniture that promotes collaboration.

2. Choose furniture that promotes productivity.

3. Choose furniture that reflects your company’s values.

Flexibility.

Technology.

Culture.

• Workers are demanding flexibility.
• Workers want the ability to work anywhere and anytime.
• Companies are looking for ways to improve engagement and reduce costs.

• Privacy, privacy and more privacy spaces
• Soft materials and rounded edges
• Bright colors
• Playful design
• Acoustics and lighting

Culture has become a buzzword in the corporate world. An increasing number of business publications, executives, coaches, and experts have zeroed in the importance of creating a positive office culture. 

Creating a positive workplace culture is all about creating an environment that increases employee happiness and boosts overall job satisfaction. Most people will spend one-third of their life at their job, and more employees want that time to be enjoyable. They also want to feel that their employers care about their wellbeing. 

However, developing a positive office culture isn’t straightforward. It requires a deep understanding of what workers want and need to feel satisfied. 

According to recent research, 87% of employees would like healthier workspace benefits. Moreover, 93% of workers in the tech industry say that they would stay at companies longer if they offered healthier workspace benefits. 

What are these healthy workspace benefits, and how do they impact culture? 

What is a Healthy Workspace Benefit?

When it comes to creating a healthy workspace, it starts with benefits. Health insurance used to be the gold standard in employee health benefits, but employees today want more. They’re looking for benefits like:

• Fitness Benefits
• Healthy Lunch Options
• Ergonomic Seating
• Wellness Rooms
• Desks with Standing Options
• And More

When combined, these benefits create a culture that prioritizes health. Beyond benefits, companies around the world are taking other measures to create a healthier workspace. 

Creating Safe Buildings

The International WELL Building Institute is making waves for creating premier standards for buildings and interior spaces. They discovered several vital areas that contribute to the overall health of employees, and they offer certification programs for companies to become WELL certified. 

However, you don’t have to get a certification to know what those areas are. According to The International WELL Building Institute, The key areas that contribute to the overall health of workers are:

• Air 
• Light
• Sound
• Community
• Water
• Movement
• Materials
• Innovation
• Nourishment
• Thermal Comfort
• Mind

Some areas are less complicated than others, but let’s dive into a few of them that have straightforward fixes and immediate benefits. 

Air 

We all need air to breathe, but the quality of air in a workspace can impact health and, in turn, boost productivity. In fact, the World Green Building Council found that productivity increased by 11% when workers had a reduction of pollutants and increased access to fresh air. 

How can you incorporate higher air quality into your workspace? Start by weatherproofing windows and doors to keep harmful pollutants out of the building. Add an air filtration system, use green cleaning products, add plants, enact a non-smoking policy, and more. 

Light

According to one study, exposure to natural sunlight can increase productivity, boost moods, and reduce rates of anxiety and depression. Also, poor lighting can increase eye strain and irritation. So, having plenty of natural light and ensuring all your lights work correctly can dramatically improve the health and output of your workers.  

Sound

Building acoustics, annoying noises, and a lack of privacy are all nuisances for employees. And over time, they can negatively impact overall wellbeing. Since wide-open concepts became popular, employees now struggle with a lack of privacy and the inability to focus. Some companies are combating this by adding private, quiet spaces or acoustic ceiling or wall systems, which allow their employees to get some peace and focus.  

Materials

It’s no secret that hazardous building and office materials can have negative impacts on employee health. (Does anyone remember asbestos?) One simple way to contribute to overall employee health is by choosing non-hazardous building and office materials, and switch out any problematic materials with non-problematic ones. For instance, swap those cheap plastic desks and counters to solid countertops. You might have to pay more for safe materials, but your employees will thank you for it, and it will ultimately play into boosting overall company culture. 

Why Creating a Healthy Workspace Matters

These are just some of the more straightforward areas that contribute to healthy workspaces. However, there are many more factors that come into play. One of the most influential components of culture and health revolves around stress. Creating a healthy environment often means finding ways to decrease employee stress and increase employee happiness. Those sorts of things are a bit harder to nail down. 

The one thing that clearly resonates is that employees want to feel safe at work. They want to see that their bosses care about them. Doing things like adding health benefits, working to reduce stress, and making small changes to make your building safer all contribute to an environment and a culture that values its employees. 

The benefits, aside from healthier and happier employees, are improved productivity, reduced turnover, and boosted outputs. Ultimately, improving culture is fundamental to increasing profits, and the first step towards improving culture lies in prioritizing healthy workspaces. 

Matt Lee is the owner of the Innovative Building Materials blog and a content writer for the building materials industry. He is focused on helping fellow homeowners, contractors, and architects discover materials and methods of construction that save money, improve energy efficiency, and increase property

By Jean-Paul Wong

As you read this, you’re probably sitting at your dining room table, your living room sofa or some makeshift office in your home.  It may not be designed to be as efficient as your office’s workspace, and it may lack good ergonomics, but it is comfortable and safe and you have learned to adapt to your environment to be productive.   

Since forever in time, office spaces existed so that employers could create “work-focused” environments, where productivity could be managed, where workers could communicate more effectively, and where collaboration and comradery are encouraged. https://nextplane.net/blog/healthy-vs-unhealthy-collaboration-cultures-in-the-workplace/   In recent years, however, as mobile technologies advanced, more progressive companies embraced the idea of teleworking as a significant way to save in real estate costs and as a way to attract a more mobile and diverse workforce.  Yet, for some industries, and for some businesses, the idea of a full-time remote workforce is still years away. In 2018, less than 25% of the U.S. workforce worked some hours from home on an average day.   

The COVID-19 pandemic, and stay-at-home mandates, thrust all of us into the workplace of the future.  Everyone quickly learned how to create a work-focused enclave in their home.  We learned how to adjust our behaviors and our expectations. And by now we all realize that we can perform our work using a myriad of remote devices.  And technology, not proximity, allows us to communicate, as well as collaborate.  

Unfortunately, the future is not here, and many of us will be going back to the office within the next few weeks.  If COVID-19 is still transmittable, how can workers be expected to go back to the office?  What will our employers do to our office environment to reduce the spread of pathogens?  How can we make sure that our co-workers remain respectful of our personal space and continue to social distance? Will it be the same? 

As employers prepare for the end of the quarantine and the work-from-home experiment comes to an end, our fears are providing good fodder for designers, workplace consultants and office furniture manufacturers.   In the not-to-distant future, workplace design may be reflective of the lessons learned during the pandemic of 2020.  

There is no reason to delay.  In the short-term, employers can make some immediate changes, making the workplace appreciably safer, with little associated cost.   

• Employers will need to strengthen the distinction between private and shared space. Over the last decade, these lines have blurred and employees will begin to demand more privacy in order to feel safe while doing their work.    Employers can make available more private/restricted areas where employees can go to feel safe, protected, and in control of their environment.  In the open plan work areas, employers can increase the distance between workers by spreading them further apart or by flipping the orientation of their desks. . Shared “hot-desking” should become a thing of the past.  It will be essential in some cases to add cleanable/wipeable privacy screens to help reduce the transmission of pathogens via droplets or aerosolized particles. 
• With the shrinking of personal workspaces over the years, offices have incorporated collaboration spaces for thought-sharing, idea generation and social interaction.   These will continue to be critical to maintain the moral and productivity of employees working in already cramped personal spaces.  But how will these look post-COVID-19? The size of collaboration spaces may shrink to limit the number of people using them.  Some collaboration spaces may even have restricted uses to control the number of people who have access.  Furniture may be spread further apart and be designed with antimicrobial fabrics and finishes for easy cleanability.  Cleaning supplies could be readily available for users to clean potentially contaminated surfaces.  Improved air filtration systems can be installed to help eliminate the spread of airborne pathogens. 
• Employers should consider placing sanitizer dispensing stations throughout the office, especially in social or shared spaces and near breakrooms and bathrooms.  Over the past month we’ve become accustomed to having antibacterial sanitizers within arm’s reach, at the grocery store, in our automobiles, our purses or bags and around our home.  We are already beginning to change our behavior.  Company-provided sanitizer stations are an effective and inexpensive way to encourage better hygiene.  
• Businesses should adopt or modify workplace policies regarding better hygiene, workspace cleanliness, and safe-distancing.  Stricter guidelines should be implemented forbidding an employee to come into the office if they, or someone in their family, is a carrier of a potentially contagious virus.  Adopting teleworking protocols after COVID-19 should be an easy first step in increasing employer’s openness to allowing remote work while an employee is convalescing or caring for others.   

• Environmental branding companies and flooring manufacturers are quickly innovating products that can be integrated into the interior design of a workspace that will provide visual cues, reminding people of safe social distancing, encouraging hand-washing, and that route people through an office in a way that mitigates the risk of transmission of viruses. These product will help keep our workplace essentially the same, but they will be a constant reminder to everyone how expectations have changed the way we work. 

Many of these products are available for immediate application and the ideas are simple to implement. Employees returning to the office will want to find that their workplace is safe, but that the “new-normal” is still a place where work gets done, is fun and where co-workers can engage and share ideas.  The key to the efficacy of any solution will be in how we change our behaviors and tendencies.