Corporate Employee Fun

The top 3 ingredients for healthy and happy employees

Professionals spend over 90,000 hours in the office over their lifetime and 44% sit at their desks for over seven hours a day. Ensuring the working environment promotes a healthy, happy and sustainable workforce is key to the success of your business.
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Meeting Millennial needs

Future-proofing workspaces with effective facilities, as well as innovations in office culture and environment, will help boost employee productivity and overall business success. 

However, the modern-day office is changing, due to evolving expectations of employees, emergence of new technologies and the growing preference for agile working.

A pressing question for the corporate and build sectors is how to ensure an office building is geared up to meet the needs of the millennial workforce.

Balloon Office Happy

Emerging trends

Digging deeper into the issue, we have identified emerging trends, employee demands in the workplace and gathered the latest advice from industry experts on how to create an aspirational working environment.

As part of this, we conducted our own independent research, which surveyed 1,000 UK office workers to determine which elements they would like to ‘filter out’ from their working lives that distract them from their passions or limit their efficiency. We also asked 1,000 facilities managers (FMs) what is important to their office space and what they’d like to see implemented to help improve employee health and wellbeing, satisfaction and productivity. 

So, what do employees want from their workplace?

From nap pods and treadmill desks, to flexible working spaces and hydration stations, we investigated what’s a passing fad, what’s here to stay and what will guarantee a happy, healthy and productive workforce.

After all, a 1% happier workforce could boost the UK economy by £24 billion a year.

We asked employees, ‘what are the key ingredients for a healthy, happy workforce?’ and this is what they said:

Top 3 ingredients for a healthy, happy workforce

Plants in Office - Sustainable workplace design

1.Flexible working and comfortable office space (61%)

2. Access to outside space and natural light (43%) 

3. Onsite hydration areas with sparkling water (33%)

Comfortable Office Space

1. Flexible working and comfortable office space

By 2025, 50% of the workforce will be millennials, a generation known for expecting more dynamic working environments. To keep pace with this movement, office spaces are increasingly being designed to create a positive and productive environment, with facilities that enable independent working as well as creative spaces for collaboration.

Natural Light Office

2. Access to outside space and natural light

According to office workers, unnatural lighting is one of the biggest aspects of an office environment that negatively affects their productivity. 

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3. Onsite hydration areas with sparkling water

With over a third of office workers stating that not drinking enough water impacts their productivity and 64% of FMs believing this too, installing hydration areas in your workplace is essential to creating an efficient workforce.

Related - Water dispensers and water coolers

Which of the above steps has your business taken to boost the health, happiness and productivity of your staff? Get in touch today to learn how BRITA VIVREAU can help your business create a healthy and happy workforce.

For more tips on how to create a healthy and happy workforce, download our toolkit.

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Corporate School of Expertise - Next Generation Workplace Sustainability

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