At Tall Architects, were always on the lookout for the latest news about workplace design, sustainability and wellness. These were our favourite articles from January.
Events
Dezeen have put together a list of the 50 best Architecture & Design events that are coming up this year. The two Australian ones are Melbourne Design Week (14- 24 March) and AIFF (18 - 19 July). View the full list here.
Sustainability
5 reasons to green your office
Introducing plants to the workplace has amazing benefits for employee health and productivity. These include improved cognition and attention, lowered stress levels, and a 33% reduction in absenteeism.
What will it take to make Australia's buildings 'green' and who will pay?
Green buildings cost between 8% to 30% more than standard buildings to construct. This premium quickly pays for itself, as they attract premium tenants and have a huge variety of health benefits to the people working within them.
Flexible Working
Flexible work a hit with ABS staff as ‘virtual teams’ become the norm
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has created formal flexible working arrangements for the majority of it’s staff, which has been a huge success for them.
Over 80% of ABS staff members work as part of a virtual team. When surveyed, 87% have stated that productivity has improved, and 72% stated that efficiency has improved or stayed the same. Only 10% of team members experienced difficulty when managing remote teams, which has declined from 15% in 2016.
Welleness
The office is killing us: How workplace design helps combat sedentary behaviour.
We all know that sitting is the new smoking, and that we should be more active in our day to day lives. The truth is, while most people are aware of this, their current workplace configurations just don’t support an active lifestyle.
A new study from the university of Cornell has found that “...effective interventions in the workplace can reduce occupational sitting by as much as 40 minutes over an 8-hour workday, which translates to about 8% reduction in sitting time.”
Working environment, not time of the year has most negative effect on staff wellbeing
“Half of the employees say that their working environment has a negative effect on their mental health (51 per cent) and wellbeing (49 per cent) and two-thirds (67 per cent) say that they only ‘sometimes, rarely or never’ feel valued at work.”
Why the right lighting is a must-have for healthy workplaces
“Companies are starting to think about their real estate as a means for improving the health of their employees,” says Keara Fanning, who leads a sustainability practice at JLL. “As humans, we evolved to wake up with the sun and go to sleep at sundown. When our lighting does the opposite of that, it affects us.”