Healthy people in healthy places equals a healthy economy. If your employees are dedicating their creative mind and soul to the growth of your company, they deserve an encouraging and comfortable workspace. Wondering how to make that happen? Let’s introduce you to the concepts of ‘WorkWell’ that is trending in commercial real estate.
What is WorkWell?
Inspired by the human-centric design philosophy of the WELL Building Standard, Max Estates has crafted the concept of WorkWell. From the amount of natural light in the building to the quality of sound in the workplace, the WorkWell philosophy guides every decision taken at Max Estates to ensure an environment that contributes immensely to the wellness of its occupants.
This design culture is in limelight across the commercial real estate sector even in these turbulent times and for all the right reasons!
How can you implement WorkWell?
Here’s our take on simple and effective ways to include the concepts of WorkWell and make your workplace better for you and your team.
Fitness
Regular exercise is the key to physical and mental well-being and has a profoundly positive impact on work habits and mood. It relieves tension and stress, steadies the mind, allows for the release of endorphins that regulate our mood, and makes it easier to manage work schedules. Repositioning the stairwells is an easy way to incorporate movement and exercise into your workday. Taking stairs instead of lifts gets your heart rate going, burns calories, and tones the body. You can design your office structure in such a way that the staircase is in a central place inviting maximum footfall. Other ways of promoting movement include creating pathways for long walks from the coffee shops to the lobby or using aesthetic components such as timber walls, beautiful sights of nature, artworks, along with playing calming music playing along the stairs.
Natural Light
When it comes to lighting up an office, natural light is always better. No one loves working all day under artificial lights. And what is better than soaking up some Vitamin D on a winter afternoon (glare can be controlled in summers), tip-tapping your fingers on the laptop and humming your favourite song? Natural lighting is an essential part of designing or updating any smart workplace and has been scientifically proven to be beneficial. People exposed to natural light sleep longer and better (at home, and not at their desks) than those who aren’t. While every workstation cannot be located close to a window, smart window design and large open spaces promote more penetration of sunlight into the office space. You can also move shelves and furniture that may block external light sources. Make sure you prioritize workstations where people spend most of their time with prime access to natural light over conference rooms which are comparatively less used. By designing with a focus on daylight and bringing natural elements inside, you’ll create a healthy and productive workplace that is warm and satisfying.
Comfort
Not sure what a ‘comfortable workplace’ looks like? Let’s understand it better with the term ‘ergonomics’. Ergonomics puts human anatomy and behaviour at the heart of design to make sure the office is the best possible fit for the user, the environment, and the task. As all of us spend considerable amounts of time at work and don’t want to invite any musculoskeletal disorders over time, it’s important to promote good ergonomic design at the workplace. You would be surprised to know how giving a comfortable makeover to desk elements can make a big difference in overall productivity. With chairs being an important piece of furniture in your office, here’s what you need to look for in an ergonomic office chair – lumbar support, seat depth leaving an inch or two between the back of your knees and the seat, chair height, reclining ability, comfort, and durability. Keep the monitor or laptop screen between 20 and 40 inches in front of you and make sure the top of the screen is at or below your eye level. If the monitor is too high, it can strain your head, neck, and back. Keep a footrest if the desk’s height requires you to raise the height of the chair. If you use the phone a lot, use a headset.
Air Quality
To be at your best, your workspace needs to be safe and healthy. While most companies are willing to shift towards a more employee-friendly setup, it’s important to realize how easily we overlook poor air quality at the workplace. We tend to think of air pollution as something outside our office premises. But the truth is, the air inside commercial spaces, offices, and other buildings can be more polluted than the air outside. The air inside these areas may be polluted by lead (in house dust), formaldehyde, fire-retardants, radon, dust, and even volatile chemicals from fragrances used in conventional cleaners.. This is the reason regularly monitoring indoor air quality is of utmost importance to ensure worker productivity. Firstly, you can limit the air pollutants produced in your office by having air and heating units cleaned to prevent pollutants from being reissued into the air. Keeping in mind that indoor air quality is often much lower than outdoors, improved ventilation can be a step closer to better air quality. More open windows and doors (when temperature and humidity levels permit) will keep the air fresh and rotating. Get nature’s indoor purifiers i.e. plants for your office. They not only absorb toxins but are also great at making the workplace more vibrant. Last, but not least, purchase the right air purifiers.
Biophilic Design
If there is one field where biophilic design is gaining popularity in, it is office architecture. Many workers complain that offices are unwelcoming, cold, and sterile places. This is certainly not hard to imagine – just think of working in a bland cubicle, as opposed to working in an earthy space resplendent with flowers and potted plants. Bringing the elements of nature into the workplace makes people less stressed, more focused and creative, and thus has a positive effect on employee productivity.
Follow the ‘bring the outdoors indoors’ mantra with wood and stone textures in the office space. Putting ferns and potted plants at every corner, terrariums on individual desks, and koi pond installations in the common areas are all great ways of bringing a bit of nature indoors. Beautiful grained-wood desks, leather sofas, cushions made of faux fur, suede and raw linen, stone table tops – the options are endless for those looking to mix and match textures.
Soothing sounds of water waves, winds, chirping birds in the background, or cascading water installations on the walls simulating the soothing noise of a waterfall, are all great ancillaries for setting up a peaceful work environment. In spacious offices, flowing water installations like fountains, water walls and constructed streams are highly recommended as they add fluidity in terms of sight, sound, touch, and light patterns.
It takes no effort to remember the smell of soil in the rain, fresh-cut grass or a bunch of roses. Given that scents trigger powerful memories in the human brain, using natural fragrances in the workplace can induce the feeling of being outdoors. Fresh flowers, plant oils and fruit essences can easily be diffused throughout office space to have an energising or calming effect. This also includes other natural elements like wood, bamboo and stone, both in spaces where employees work as well as in break areas, to aid our tactile senses.
How Max House makes it happen
With a mission to deliver a truly unique quality of excellence and lifestyle to its customers, Max House, Okhla, is a commercial real estate property with design interiors that prioritize employee wellbeing with the ‘WorkWell’ mantra. Max House’s commitment to the Indian real estate sector has shaped the design landscape of office design and infrastructure in Delhi in the last few years.
Max Estates is now paving the way to rule the commercial real estate in the world-class business city of Delhi with its upcoming project, Max Square. Designed to be IGBC Gold rated, Max Square is a commercial office development scheduled to become operational in the first quarter of 2023.
To know more about how WorkWell is a culture constant at Max Estates, check the link.
