Each pillar includes subcategories influenced by the individual and/or the organisation, including emotional expression, belonging, relationships, work demands, diversity and inclusion and more.
How to build a healthy workplace
1. Embrace a culture of wellbeing
Building a healthy workplace can only be done by embedding a wellness culture – one of the pillar subcategories for organisations to control. T.J. says this approach starts from the top:
“It needs to be part of the DNA of the organisation – having people front and centre. If that’s not the lived experience that people have at work then the organisation’s leadership will not be trusted.”
Leaders must walk the talk—model work/life balance, show genuine care, and back it up with action.
Building a wellness culture can also be done by supporting employees through wellness initiatives and programmes. ISS worked with a customer to offer curated events for its employees such as mindfulness sessions, belonging events, yoga classes and provided healthy snacks during the day. The result: more engaged and satisfied employees – leading to stronger business success.
2. Design inclusive spaces that foster belonging
Accessible workspaces help every employee to feel valued, contributing to a sense of inclusion and belonging – especially as 1.3 billion people globally have a significant disability.
Margot Slattery, Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion and Social Sustainability at ISS, explains:
“We’re involved in the design, build, concierge and how a building looks and feels. We need to make sure the building is accessible, easy to navigate and takes into account all the different users and their different requirements.”
ISS collaborates with Mobility Mojo to assess customer sites’ accessibility measures, and provide feedback on where and how to improve to make the building more inclusive. Its Chief Executive Offer, Stephen Cluskey, was another speaker at the LinkedIn Live session, and explained this process and the range of conditions that organisations must consider if they want to become more accessible, such as neurodiversity, mobility, hearing and more.
“When a user goes into a building, it’s important that something’s there when, where and how they need it – this can make their experience go from being negative to positive,” Margot adds.
3. Make hybrid work… work
Data for our Evolving Workplaces report also found that 81% of employees have a hybrid arrangement, and 47% expect their amount of days working from home to be the same in five years’ time – highlighting how this pattern is here to stay and that organisations need to adapt.
To create a workplace to support hybrid working, one approach is to define workstyle personas – grouping employees by how they collaborate and designing workplace spaces that meet the needs of each group (see Designing Curated Workplace Experiences report). In a similar vein to this, ISS helped one customer by grouping building occupants into on-site staff, on-site customer-facing staff, hybrid workers and visitors, and offering curated experiences for each group.
Tools like the Workplace app further enhance the experience for hybrid employees, letting them see who’s in, book rooms, raise IT tickets or pre-order lunch. The goal? A seamless, frictionless day that makes them feel seen and supported.
