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Home Checklists Workplace wellbeing checklist
Checklist contents
Employee wellbeing is a key issue that companies are striving to address to ensure that their employees remain happy and motivated at work. After all, a happy workforce is a productive workforce. We'll take you through how to incorporate wellbeing practices into your office design or fit out project.
The guide identifies what should be considered in advance of any office design project. Starting with why you want to focus on wellbeing in the workplace, moving through to how to begin implementing change and how you can evaluate the effects.
Workplace wellbeing covers both your physical and mental state. Physical wellbeing covers biophilic elements, such as access to natural daylight and temperature control - essentially, things that have a direct impact on your body. Equally important is support for mental wellbeing, through providing adequate breakout areas to relax, or have an informal catch up with a colleague. Supporting both physical and mental wellbeing through office design can help create a healthy, productive workforce.
According to The World Green Building Council report on Health, Wellbeing & Productivity in Offices, there is clear evidence that office design impacts productivity output and staff morale. Small changes to individuals can have a cumulative effect on productivity and, in turn, your bottom line.
Wellbeing is a critical element in any office design strategy, and we firmly believe that your fit out should revolve around your staff; making them both happy and productive.
Before undertaking a new wellbeing initiative, it's important to understand your own motivations. Understanding exactly what you want to achieve out of investing in wellbeing will allow you to effectively measure the results, and also ensure that you address the issue with the most effective initiatives or changes.
Once you've decided on your goals from investing in wellbeing, it's time to think about engaging the right people to start this change.
You'll want to make sure that you get buy-in from the top of your organisation, so it's best to partner with a project champion or sponsor from a key department. Usually an influencer or executive from finance, facilities or HR would have a vested interest in any wellbeing initiatives.
Wellbeing is something that spans your entire organisation, so in order to successfully implement a new cross-divisional initiative, you'll need to involve everyone from your managing director, to human resources, marketing, finance, facilities and IT.
Marketing or communications will be important stakeholders to communicate the changes to the wider business. Culture changes can be a big shift for some of your staff and will require a well thought-out strategy to roll out and re-enforce the changes over time. You'll need to think about the best way to communicate with the business, is it weekly emails, newsletters, posters or team meetings?
Top tip: make sure that your teams know what's going on early in the process.They'll be more open to an initiative that they've been involved in, and it also helps makes any change management easier.
Before you get started, you'll need to review how your current fit out promotes wellbeing. It will help define the scope of work by knowing how your employees feel about their current space. There's a wealth of qualitative and quantitative data that can be gathered from a thorough review of your current setup.
You can ask your staff directly what they think about their current environment and how it promotes or facilitates their wellbeing. This can also help them feel that they're getting a direct say in the future of their workspace, all while providing insights into team proximities, air quality and other cultural elements. You can also conduct interviews to probe further into key questions and reveal more insights into cultural factors and wellbeing issues.
A TUS gathers quantitative data around the utilisation of your current space. A surveyor will observe your employees in the office - assessing how often they use their workstations, meeting rooms and breakout areas. This will allow your fit out provider to see what elements of the office are potentially underutilised or over-subscribed.
Top tip: A workplace consultant will undertake both of these as a first step in developing a well-rounded office design.
A lot of insight into wellbeing can be found through some of your already available resources - you'll just need to look at them in the right context!
Top tip: Thoroughly reviewing your existing data can help you create more strategic questions to get more out of your surveys and interviews.
Now that you understand how your staff work and use their current space, you can begin to start designing your new fit out. Your research will also have provided insights into how they feel about their workspace, which is essential in formulating your fit out goals. Your office fit out partner will help shape your workplace wellbeing goals, based on findings from staff surveys.
The cornerstones for your office design should all be based on a combination of research data, staff feedback and business strategy. This will make sure that your office design is culturally in sync with your business and also fit for purpose to achieve your growth targets. Consider the following when developing the brief for your office design:
As a first step, you'll need to make sure that your office design accommodates your staff's base physiological needs. Making sure that your staff have the optimum working environment will reduce the time spent worrying about technology, or environmental needs, enabling them to focus on what really matters. You'll want to make their working environment as flexible and productive as possible.
Make sure there is flexible climate control in the building, so staff can regulate their own temperature.
This should facilitate new ways of working and be as seamless as possible. Make sure you have comprehensive WiFi coverage.
If you're looking at embracing activity based working, ensure breakout areas can be just as productive as workstations. This is all about giving staff choice of their work environment.
Can you provide exercise facilities to allow staff to de-stress during the day and keep fit and healthy? If your office floorspace doesn't permit this, then you could partner with a local gym to provide staff discounts
Can you provide bike parking and change facilities for staff who would prefer to cycle to work?
Putting staff back in touch with nature through outdoor space not only allows them to choose their work setting, but also get access to fresh air and vitamin D.
Areas where employees can take time out to think without distraction or to concentrate on intensive tasks.
Either formal or informal collaboration zones that can bring staff together for meetings or impromptu catch-ups away from their desk.
It's been proven that featuring art and plants in your office design can actually increase concentration and wellbeing throughout the working day. This is also a fun way to either showcase your brand or involve some talented staff artists.
Your office design can reflect your core values or strategy. It's also a great way to embody your brand in a physical presence.
Create a sense of community and corporate history through an employee picture wall or higlighting your brand's heritage through the design, artworks or murals.
Change is hard even for the most accepting individuals, and adjusting to the new environment and ways of working may take time. Some might instantly adapt to the change, while others will take time to adapt to their new environment. You can't always predict human behaviour, which is why wellbeing is an ongoing process. It's important to continually review and adapt your wellbeing initiatives to best suit your staff, ensuring that they're getting the most out of your offering.
Top tip: a flexible and future-proof office with a data-driven design will continue to support a range of initiatives for years to come.