WELLNESS AT WORK

Mental Health was a hot topic during the month of May - it was particularly at the forefront of people’s minds attracting huge media attention. We had ‘Mental Health Awareness Week’ and this week brings stress-relieving ‘Massage At Work Week’. 

Various high-profile figures have been talking openly about their own battles with mental health. HRH Prince William, The Duke of Cambridge, Stephen Fry, Jameela Jamil, Katie Perry and Alesha Dixon, led the second annual ‘Mental Health Minute’, an initiative launched last year in order to encourage and support conversations around mental health. Over 300 radio stations joined in to kick off Mental Health Awareness Week and share an important mental health message. This year’s theme was all about the importance of listening, and the difference we can make to someone when we take the time to stop and to listen.

It’s thanks to campaigns like ‘Mental Health Minute’ and information becoming more widely available that the stigma attached to talking about mental health is declining rapidly. As a result, this is also affecting the workplace - employees are being open with their employers about their mental health and employers are realising that wellness at work and productivity walk hand in hand!

Wellness at Work

Mental ill health is estimated to cost the UK economy £94bn a year according to recent OECD figures. At the same time, the Mental Health Foundation charity calculates that policies addressing wellbeing at work increase productivity by as much as 12%.

75% of us believe that our work environment has a negative impact on our wellbeing and productivity. Considering that we spend most of our waking hours at work it really shouldn’t come as a surprise! In fact, on average we spend 42 hours a week at work.

What do we mean by the work environment?

Well, it encompasses everything from the type and quantity of work, the people, culture and the actual physical workspace.

When it came to designing offices in the mid to late 20th century, the word ‘productivity’ was traditionally the watch word. Designs were open-plan to maximise headcount per square foot, creating environments not unlike battery farms. Over the last five years this has increasingly changed and just as ‘Wellbeing at Work’ is becoming a key factor in employee retention and attracting new talent, it is now also a central consideration for many workplace designers and their clients, eager to explore the benefits of innovative practices such as agile working for instance.  

Psychology-based insights are significantly contributing to a reshaping of the workplace by helping us to understand how the environment & interiors can impact healthy, happy, empowered, collaborative and productive people.

Here at Hi Design we always consider the emotional needs of staff when designing a workplace. We believe that by providing staff with a choice of work settings (from quiet work areas, collaboration zones and social space) it empowers them, giving back control, which as we know is an important factor in achieving good mental health.

So once we’ve created a great place to work, what practical steps can we take to encourage wellness? What about massage?

Talk to some old-school employers about massage therapy in the workplace and you can expect sniggers and cynicism. And yet there is an increasing body of evidence that a programme of ‘Wellness at Work’ measures, that include massage therapy, can significantly improve productivity, and help in staff retention. For relatively little outlay, we can boost morale, make employees feel restored and happier and see absenteeism dwindle in line with their declining stress levels. No wonder savvy employers are increasingly switching on to the win-win benefits to them and to their staff of short, in-work massage sessions, as they feel the impact on the bottom line from a healthier, more motivated workforce.

Massage Therapy plays a part in the improvement of both physical and mental wellbeing. There are obvious immediate benefits in the relief of conditions like repetitive strain injury or muscle tension for instance, but it is with the respite from stress, no matter how brief, that we can find the greatest benefits. Stress has a huge impact on our body’s immune system and any therapy that helps alleviate it will mean that we becmes less susceptible to colds and viruses. The cost of employee sickness absence in the UK is colossal, as is the wasted time money and resource involved in staff churn when workers feel unhappy and unloved, so therapies that ease fatigue and lower work-related emotional pressures repay massive dividends in the long run.

We’ve all heard about achieving our ideal work-life balance, but what this really means is making an effort to avoid burn-out. Few of us can afford to work 3-day weeks to ensure this, so adoption of strategies that help with physical and mental health while working normal hours have become ever more important.

So what difference would a 15 minute massage really make?

First of all, general health improves. Headaches, back pain, and even blood pressure have all been proven to reduce following massage. Its effects are calming, and levels of serotonin, the so-called ‘happy chemical’ that our body produces naturally, are boosted. Basically, massage makes us feel more positive and cheerful – we are both relaxed but also re-energised, and better equipped to take on the next challenge.

Secondly, the increased blood flow that results from massage has proven positive physiological effects. Energy levels can drop during the working day, often after lunch, when we might reach for the mid-afternoon carb top-up from unhealthy sweets and snacks, just to keep us going. Studies show that we are at our least productive in the afternoon, so a short massage session would re-energise, raise alertness and concentration levels and improve our problem-solving abilities.  The clearer mind we enjoy after massage means fewer mistakes and greater productivity and effectiveness.

Thirdly, there is a subtle psychological benefit that comes from us feeling looked after. As employees we feel well disposed to our employers (we are ‘touched’ in both senses of the word) who have taken the trouble to look after our physical and mental well being. In addition, if we decide to take up the offer of free massage sessions, we achieve a sense of self-empowerment. We know that the greatest stress is felt when we feel like we are trapped in our work, with few choices or any sense of self-determination. Choosing to help ourselves with massage is a great way to really feel like we are taking control over our lives.

Finally, provision of massage therapy goes a long way to changing the culture of the organisations we work for. There is clearly a huge benefit to us if we opt for it, but the sense of physical and mental well being that it creates is contagious. Healthier, happier de-stressed people are much nicer to work with as colleagues!

Thankfully, we are all much more aware these days of the need to strive for better physical and mental health, and none of us need feel any shame in admitting to pain, depression or stress. At Hi Design, we want to create great spaces to work in, spaces that enhance working lives, where people can flourish, not flounder. Where space and budget allow, we will provide for a wellbeing room in our designs, but even if this is not practical, a discretely located meeting room may also be used for massage therapy. Some companies offer quick ‘at desk’ massages services, or even personal massage rollers. At the very least, layouts may be configured to encourage staff to move away from their desks regularly. But good work-place design is only part of the story, and we can think of few measures that can make as big a difference to wellbeing as massage therapy. Go for it, you’ll literally feel the benefit!

Massage therapy is just one aspect of the Wellness at Work idea. Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing our insights and experiences of designing spaces to meet the needs of the changing workplace. Through our series of ‘IN A NUTSHELL’ guides, we will give a clear explanation of emerging trends such as AGILE WORKING & BIOPHILIA etc, how they contribute to ‘Wellness at Work’, without losing sight of the bottom line! We will also share our Hi Design ‘Case Studies’ where these concepts have been proven in practice.

We very much look forward to you joining us.

Hi Design “work spaces that work"