Work, Wellness & Space – and the ‘Pause’ COVID-19 Provides

Even amid soaring profits and stock prices, savvy American business leaders entered 2020 knowing they faced a threat to their most critical, valuable assets: their people. Employees were stressed and burning out, attracting and retaining top talent was getting tougher and employers were only beginning to understand the importance of keeping their employees not only physically healthy but holistically well.

Then COVID-19 hit, essentially closing America and much of the world. But amid the unimaginable damage of the worst pandemic in a century comes a moment – a pause – to rethink norms, some decades old, around work, wellness and space.

The ensuing conversations inform and propel the Work, Wellness & Space project, a partnership between GreenHouse::Innovation and communications firm Greentarget in collaboration with Learn Adapt Build (LAB)/Amsterdam. In spring 2020, we interviewed more than 30 experts and developed an emerging hypothesis: Corporate America is preparing itself for a new era of holistic preventative design.

We believe our insights, gathered through what we’re calling consultative, qualitative research, signal the beginning of broader conversations, which could take years. But we believe these conversations will help lead the transition to a world optimized for health, wellness and sustainability – and fuel the actions required to get there.

“Businesses are finally discovering the importance of holistic wellness,” said Willie Hoag, principal with Mid-America Real Estate Corporation in Chicago. “Because of the hard choices that executives have to make around COVID-19, we have an opportunity to improve how workplaces function and to better integrate health into our everyday norms.” 

But true improvement will come at a cost – one that may be hard for some business leaders to swallow, especially until they see some proof of concept. And it will require them to embrace a collective approach that brings together such fields as architecture, construction, commercial real estate, urban planning and local government. Our interviews focused on individuals from those groups in hopes of priming what we think is a much broader conversation.

We’ll release our insights on a weekly cadence between now and Labor Day. Here’s a sampling:

Expect a Stronger Focus on Mental Wellness

More than we ever could have imagined when 2020 began, world events have driven our efforts. The racial tensions that sparked protests and widespread reckoning in late spring – following months of shelter-in-place and economic disruption – heightened the stakes. It’s increasingly clear that when employees return to their workplaces, it will be during or following the most stressful year in our collective memories.

One thing we expect in the coming weeks and months, at least among smart employers, is a stronger focus on mental wellness and related services. But experts said those services should not be framed as therapy, but as performance assistance – or even coaching.

“Even in today’s world of advancing acceptance, close to half of a staff thinks that people go to a therapist because they have a problem,” said M. Todd Puckett, a licensed clinical professional counselor and the founder of Skycrest, which provides performance and life enhancement services to executives and other high-performing individuals. “But if it’s instead seen as an asset that can stimulate their profitability – and increase their bonuses – then they’re all in.” 

A senior officer at a venture capital fund focused on healthcare, who asked that her name not be used, said that before COVID-19, conversations about mental wellness and such topics as mindfulness and resilience were “on the upswing.” That’s increased since the pandemic, in part because of technology, she said.

 “COVID has accelerated the adoption of telehealth, including telemental health, cognitive behavioral therapy, etc.,” she said. “Because of COVID, employers are even more focused on employees’ well-being – which includes mental wellness.” 

Not everyone is convinced that this new focus will bear fruit. Tanarra Schneider, managing director, design at Accenture Interactive/Fjord, warned against “entirely performative” efforts by companies to address mental health and wellness within their organizations.

 “You are not going to incentivize or disincentivize people to change behaviors without implementing structural changes that may cost something and go beyond performative measures," she said. "Otherwise, the onus continues to lie with the individual.” 

Reimagining the Human Habitat: How Offices Will Change

What will American workplaces look like when employees return? Think more General Hospital than Dunder Mifflin. Much of the equipment and safety precautions formerly found in medical facilities will become common in the workplace – which makes sense amid a global pandemic.

Additionally, existing workplaces will be reconfigured, and new spaces designed, to emphasize worker health and safety. That means antimicrobial paint on the walls, sneeze guards and hand sanitizers across the office, UV lights to disinfect phones, wayfinding measures – like the ones appearing in many grocery stores – to direct traffic flow, devices that let individuals open doors or activate elevators with their feet and enhanced air filtration systems.

 “All people in the industry are talking about is how to make people feel safe in the workplace,”  said Jessica Sherwood, director of business development at Leopardo, a Chicago-based construction company that works with Fortune 100 companies.

That also means six feet between workers, which could cut against the open office trend of recent years where employers tightly packed workers into spaces meant to encourage collaboration – and lower companies’ rent expenses.

“I was talking with a friend who’s a lawyer, the managing partner for an office, and he’s used to the cushy, hard-walled offices,” said Scott Ginder, principal and founder at Forge Craft Architecture + Design in Austin, Texas. “Our company likes collaborative environments, like the open studio. My friend said, ‘Yeah, go sell that now.’ And he’s right – it might not be the safest arrangement.” 

Common office amenities of recent years might also be a thing of the past. “The ping pong table is gone,” said Paul O’Connor, an urban strategist. But removing those types of amenities and making offices safer is only the tip of what should be an iceberg, O’Connor said. 

“The opportunity is to really reimagine the human habitat, not just the workplace,” O’Connor said. 

New Difficulties in Managing Virtual Space

Even if offices reopen in a big way soon, employers are expected to allow and even encourage employees to work from home more than they did before the pandemic. That’s partly about safety, but it’s also about offering employees the flexibility they’ve earned over the past few months.

“People are learning, ‘Oh, I'm getting my work done in four hours where it used to take me six hours because I'd have Molly popping by and asking me how my weekend was,” said Dr. Eugénie Pabst, a biofeedback specialist. “There is benefit to that – you are creating friends at work. But in terms of productivity, it’s important to understand the value of giving your employees enough space and privacy.” 

Many employees, as one expert put it, will now blanch at “driving three hours roundtrip for a one-hour meeting.” But to learn from the past few months, organizations should make detailed studies of how employees effectively worked from home – provided they can do so with open minds. “Don’t judge them for wearing slippers or shorts, or for sitting outside,” Schneider said.

Still, the work-from-home transition has created challenges too. Anyone who didn’t think there were too many meetings before the pandemic probably thinks so now, said Dr. Michael Horowitz, president of TCS Education System, a nonprofit system of colleges advancing student success and community impact. TCS has long embraced online platforms, which made it easier to transition to video meetings. But Horowitz said his organization is being intentional about the number and length of meetings to prevent employee burnout.

“Video meetings are tough and fatiguing,” he said. “For maximum impact and productivity, we are learning the right cadence and quantity for our remote environment. When is it important to have the whole leadership group together? What could be better addressed in a quick, one-on-one conversation? We need to be purposeful with our time and virtual interactions right now.” 

A Broad Shift to Preventative Care

As where we work and live changes, experts believe – and hope – that there will be a renewed emphasis on preventative measures to keep us healthy.

This focus on preventative wellness also presents an opportunity for commercial real estate – to fill newly vacant office space with medical services. Combining that with the concept of concierge medicine – where patients essentially have physicians on retainer – could mean doctors setting up shop to serve workers in large office buildings.

“There’s a real opportunity for medical and commercial real estate to come together,” said Jack Siragusa, first vice president of the CBRE Retail Advisory Group in Chicago. “It’s almost like selling a doctor as part of the building amenities.”

That kind of synergy will be needed if COVID-19’s disruption can lead to benefits in the coming years, experts say. Beyond getting the right individuals and industries to the table and making the necessary investments, improving work, wellness and space comes down to an interplay between environment, culture, personal power and norms. The challenges and constraints in realizing wellness in this complex ecosystem start with understanding the various stakeholder motivations.

“Health and wellness are often treated as a conflict to financial gain and seen as an additional investment rather than a core requirement in value creation,” said Nicholas White, managing director of Learn Adapt Build (LAB)/Amsterdam. “COVID-19 has given us a rare opportunity to analyze and quantify investment against results that can accelerate the change. The code has not been fully cracked – but some important conversations certainly are happening. They’re long overdue.”

In the weeks ahead, we will explore the issues that organizations must consider and the efforts they must collaborate on to bring holistic and preventive wellness to their organizations. In each chapter, we’ll identify points of conflict preventing change as a primer for future discussions.