It is often said we are victims of our own success. Modern life, driven by technological advances, may be more comfortable and convenient than it was a few decades ago but in many ways these changes have also had a negative impact. We are always online now because it’s difficult to ‘switch off’ with laptops, tablets and smartphones never more than an arm’s length away. Our diets are inundated with sugar, fat and additives to make food more convenient and exercise and fitness is harder to fit into our increasingly sedentary lives. 

In the workplace perceptions of health and wellbeing have changed little over the past few years. ORC International’s annual global Perspectives survey[1] has shown that in the UK, only 51% of employees believe their employer cares about their health and wellbeing and the Labour Force Survey shows that the total number of working days lost due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety was 11.3 million in 2013/14, little change from previous years.

The stress points

It’s like we are at a cross-roads between the traditional work set up and the new. Traditionally we worked ‘Monday-Friday 9-5’. We had a lunch break in the middle of each day, a two-day weekend and holidays where we disappeared from the office without contact for a fortnight. The new is flexitime; using technology to enable us to work anytime and anywhere that there is a network signal and WiFi to connect to. 

Sounds great, but the trouble is we’re trying to do the traditional and the new concurrently. The result being we’re working all the time: during 9-5 in the office, over lunch, on the train to work, in the evenings, at weekends, during holidays… It’s no wonder we’re all stressed out. 

Last year the BBC reported results from an Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) survey[2] which showed that on average managers work an extra day a week in unpaid overtime. Increasingly managers have work smartphones or opt into a-bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scheme whereby they are subsidised for using their own phone for work purposes.  With many people not switching their phone off at all in a 24 hour period, being ‘on-call’ 24-7 is an increasing phenomenon. Some people like it, but for others it becomes an obsession from which it is difficult to escape.  

In January Stylist magazine launched their ‘reclaiming the lunch-break’ challenge, in which employees were encouraged to take a lunch break each day in January. And a challenge it was, because we’re creatures of habit and increasingly this is a time for working-lunches, seminars, or simply catching up on emails. Slipping out of the office for more than a quick trip to the sandwich shop can even be looked at by colleagues as slacking off. 

Since last June any employee in the UK is able to request flexible working but according to research by O2 Business[3] only 23% have taken up the option so far. The research found that a lack of trust and a general business culture that doesn’t encourage working away from the office is largely to blame. Culture needs to shift so performance is judged on what employees deliver, rather than how long they are sitting at their desk in the office. 

Working Sustainably

A lot of it can be helped by getting smarter with how we assess, track and analyse our workplaces. 

In her book “GDP: A brief but affectionate history” Diana Coyle discusses the significance of using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an economic indicator in today’s world. She argues that GDP doesn’t account for components such as pollution, traffic congestion or crime, nor does it consider the huge benefits of innovation or the variety of goods and services in modern economy. She suggests that yes, GDP is an important measure, but there are other equally important indicators to consider.

This analogy can equally be applied to workplaces, for they are also impacted by an evolving economy that pollutes the working environment (e.g. long hours sitting in front of a computer screen, little opportunity for exercise or fresh air, rushed lunches consisting of highly processed food, stressful commutes and decreased personal time).  Organisations need to understand how to measure and manage the impact these issues have on employees’ wellbeing, and how they compromise their ability to perform at their optimum. 

Employee engagement – conceptualised by ORC international as “Say, Stay, and Strive”[4] – has been on the HR agenda for a long time and its importance to business performance is widely accepted. What organisations are now beginning to do is to explore the critical link between wellbeing and engagement. The ORC International model of sustainable engagement considers the reciprocal nature of the relationship:high levels of wellbeing prevent burnout of highly engaged employees, and high levels of engagement bolster health and even help employees to recover from illness more quickly. Good work, it seems, is important for good health.

But sustainable engagement is in limbo.

“We have seen little notable change in how employees are viewing health and wellbeing in their workplaces over the past few years,” says Alice Streatfeild, Insight Consultant at ORC International.

“Our research has shown that more than one in ten employees feel they are under too much work pressure and feel unable to strike a balance between work and personal life and closer to 20% are not satisfied with the policies in place to help them manage their health and wellbeing.”

The WELL building standard

People policies and practices can go so far, but an interesting new initiative called the WELL Building Standard[5] that was launched in the United States at the end of last year following several years of research, development and testing takes workplace wellbeing to the next level. The Standard is a performance-based system grounded in medical research that measures, certifies and monitors features of the built environment that impact human health and wellbeing (be it a workplace, home, school or hotel). The idea being that designing buildings to be as healthy as possible to live, work, learn and play in will enhance the wellbeing and performance of the inhabitants leading to greater sustainability.The WELL Building Standard accredits buildings based on how they perform on seven key wellbeing-related factors that will become increasingly important as our lifestyle patterns continually evolve.

·  Air: improve indoor air quality, to reduce health related issues such as upper respiratory complaints, asthma, allergies and chronic fatigue. 

·  Water: implement design, technology and treatment strategies to achieve optimal water quality and reduce issues such as those related to gastrointestinal and cardiovascular health.

·  Nourishment: implement strategies to encourage healthy eating habits to reduce health risks such as heart attack, cancer and excessive weight gain.

·  Light: provide room illumination that minimizes disruption to the body’s circadian rhythm and provides appropriate illumination for all tasks to address disorders such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), age related macular degeneration and sleep disruption.

·  Fitness: provide building occupants with numerous opportunities for physical activity to improve issues such as heart health, reduce stress, manage weight and posture.

·  Comfort: create an environment that enables occupants to experience comfort, both physically and mentally and reduce the likes of anxiety and depression, muscle pain and help induce restful sleep and lower back support.

·  Mind: implement design, technology, and treatment strategies in order to provide a built environment in which mental and emotional wellbeing is enriched which can help disorders such as high blood pressure, chronic back pain, headaches and migraine.

Many organisations will be doing at least some of these things already but the WELL Building Standard helps to formalise practices, promote them and acknowledge organisations doing them consistently and effectively.

Conclusion

Technology will continue to advance – in some ways making our lives easier, but at the same time challenging us to do more in less time. We need to harness the freedom technology offers and use it to our benefit by spreading our commitments across a broader less structured timeframe and altering our perceptions so we can shape our lives around the new normal. To do so we need to forget the traditional. Forget that office work starts at 9am and finishes at 5pm. Forget that being present demonstrates commitment. Forget that breaks need to be scheduled over lunchtime. We’re getting better at embracing some of the quick fixes such as the fruit bowl in the office and subsidised gym membership but the impact these are making is negligible. Changing culture to accept non-standard working hours, re-thinking the structure of the working week and redesigning our places of work are longer-term initiatives and need greater investment. Our world is changing fundamentally, and therefore so too do our ways of interacting with that evolving world.