Health and wellness in offices involves considering how the built elements of an
office detract or contribute to human health, wellbeing and productivity, and
working out what we can change so that we thrive in our offices.
We’ve separated healthy and wellness into four themes:
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MIND: The personal and subjective qualities of the office including
elements like office aesthetics, connection to nature, and employee satisfaction.
In our key elements below we've included an example occupancy
survey to help determine possible areas for improvement in an office.
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BODY: Personal but objectively measurable elements relate to
aspects such as human health, activity levels, absenteeism, and active
transport use. Corporate health programs by health insurers have addressed this
area for many years, but we are now gaining a better understanding of whether
office layout and culture supports or inhibits individuals’ efforts to be
healthier and happier.
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CULTURE: The collective behaviours of an organisation highlights whether health and
wellness ranks as a corporate value. Office policies, procedures, employee
handbooks and even management style can reveal a lot about health and wellness
in the office culture, as can public company value statements and marketing.
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WORKPLACE: A collectively shared physical
space includes the type of office plan; end of trip facilities; environmental monitoring; accreditations such as NABERS; the air, water, light
and acoustics; ergonomics; and the relationship of health and wellness to
energy efficiency. Lighting, acoustics and air quality have significant effects
on people’s performance and wellbeing.
Our key elements and related resources below have been designed to help you consider how to make your building healthy and what you need to do in order to implement change.