How Can Companies Use Mindful Design to Improve the Mental Wellness of Their Workforce?
Over time the pandemic has changed the workforce's perception of mental health. The pandemic-led challenges on mental sensibilities made people invest in their mental health initiatives more, thereby impacting the work and workplace dynamics as well. Thus, it is time brands and business leaders also invest in employee mental health; it is time to realize its impact on their people and business.
Failing to understand the significance of workforce mental health at work can have negative repercussions on the brand. Data suggests that 84% of the workforce has agreed to have suffered from negative mental health due to workplace issues. Whereas,?68% of millennials and 81% of Gen Z have left roles for mental health reasons.
Isn't that alarming? But how do brands ensure employee mental health and wellness?
Tackling Mental Health Challenges
With the beginning of mental health awareness month, we saw a spree of mental health-related posts across social media, in addition to HR events focusing on mental health awareness. Off lately, a lot of brands have also taken up counseling and mindfulness app-based subscriptions for employees. While all of these are the stepping stones to creating awareness, do these initiatives actually solve workplace mental health issues at a grass-root level?
Why has prioritizing mental health become an afterthought and is not ingrained in the process of brand building?
As workplace designers, we at?Zyeta?aim at designing for brands to help them achieve their brand mission. Thus, we believe, workplace design focused on human-centric design and neuro-diverse concepts can help inculcate mental health concerns seamlessly.
Making Mental Health a Workplace Priority
Let us have a quick look at some design-based initiatives that brands must focus on:
Balance the spatial experience
The whole point of wellness-oriented workplace design is to create a spatial experience for employees to feel comfortable, confident, and motivated. Thus, designs must focus on the right ratio of open collaboration and heads-down workspaces, the proportion of assigned spaces versus the public and semi-public spaces, etc.
Balancing and optimizing space usage is the key.
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Communicate through spaces
Whether employees are focusing or collaborating, socializing, or decompressing; offering a spatial experience to people at each stage is necessary. Designs must communicate the intent to people. Where it is okay to be loud, where they need to go to focus, which spaces they will naturally go to unwind or where they would feel like brainstorming; all of these depend on the spatial quality.
A sensory experience through color, texture, light, acoustic, and scents thus can help achieve this.
Prevent workplace loneliness
To foster a healthy workplace, make people feel heard and included. Offer them spaces that help them connect and contribute to the brand better.?
Nurture a sense of shared purpose, through the integration of brand expression into the workspace. Furthermore, providing social areas and informal breakout spaces where people can connect and bond is also a great way.
That's all?
No, the list is quite extensive. What brands need is the right mix of strategy and design.
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I help architects succeed by using happiness as their unfair advantage. My clients are big-hearted leaders who want thriving, high-performing teams filled with joy and fulfilment.
1 年Sharing here also, our industry insights study formatted as a downloadable PDF. Might be of interest to anyone who looks at workplace trends and design. https://whad-flyt.com/speaking%2Bconsultancy #???????? = #?????????????????? +? #?????????????????? ????????’? #???????????????????????? +? #????????????
Realtor Associate @ Next Trend Realty LLC | HAR REALTOR, IRS Tax Preparer
2 年Well Said.
Head of Digital Media & Branding at Zyeta|Helping businesses to grow exponentially.
2 年Work is changing, the way people are working is changing too so why not #WORKPLACES? Workplace design is revolutionizing the way companies approach the well-being and productivity of their employees. Companies are coming forward and considering factors such as ergonomics, natural lighting, and biophilic design, for creating environments that support both physical and mental well-being. This is helping to combat issues such as mental burnout by reducing stress and promoting relaxation and rejuvenation in the workplace. Additionally, companies are also implementing flexible workspaces, quiet zones, and other features that support work-life balance, enabling employees to better manage their workloads and reduce feelings of overwhelm. Overall, workplace design is playing an increasingly important role in helping companies to create healthy and productive work environments that support employee well-being.