Office Design for Healthy Employees
As a business owner, keeping your employees healthy and happy is a primary concern. When employees are healthy, they are more engaged, productive, and tend to stay in their positions longer. Office design for healthy employees can be more important than you think.
You might be wondering: what does office design have to do with healthy employees?
In short – everything. Of course, we can’t speak to every employee’s lifestyle choices outside of work, but in the office, there are many things you can do to design their workspaces to support optimum health.
Here are some of the top office design strategies you can apply in support of a healthful environment at work:
1. Lots of Windows, Natural Light
Being able to see “outside the box” not only encourages out of the box thinking, but it also gives the eyes and the brain a rest from staring at a computer screen all day long. It also allows natural light to fill the office, which is much less taxing on our energy and focus.
2. Bring the outside in
A little nature inside the office does wonders. Plants produce oxygen and improve air quality. They can also counter toxic chemical and gas emissions from furniture, carpeting, or poor air quality in general, making for a healthier environment.
Water features also provide a sense of wellbeing, whether it’s a waterfall in the reception area or a small fountain in the break room. Natural features such as these have been proven to improve productivity and wellbeing in the office.
3. Sit-stand desks
Sitting at a computer workstation all day is not only monotonous, but it can have many negative impacts on employee health. Prolonged inactivity may cause lower back pain, weight gain, and headaches, and it may also cause productivity to slow down or stall out over the course of a day. Sit-stand desks are fully adjustable so that your teams can vary their position periodically, improving circulation, heart health, and improving psychological health as well.
4. Wellness Rooms
Many companies today are choosing to provide wellness rooms for their employees. Essentially, this is a separate space where employees can go to focus on their health, release stress, get some quiet time, or simply have a place to go when they are not feeling well. Some offices equip their wellness rooms with light therapy, massage chairs, or yoga mats for getting a mid-afternoon stretch.
5. Ergonomic seating and desk systems
While office chairs and desks are still a necessity, today’s designs are a far cry from what they used to be. Ergonomic seating reduces fatigue, improves concentration, and lessens the incidence of pain related to sitting for long periods. Modern desks and benching systems offer similar benefits by nature of their design; every aspect and feature of the desk is positioned thoughtfully and logically so that employees can comfortably reach everything they need to do their job.
If you are looking for office design ideas to support healthy employees, we’ve got plenty of them! Reach out today to schedule a consultation or to learn more about what we can do for you.
