The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us all how everyone’s health is directly affected by the built environment. No one wants to provide an unhealthy workplace, and no one wants to work where they cannot be safe. Businesses want their people to be healthy and safe both for their own sake, and also for the business’s sake. Architecture and design can have a significant impact in creating safe, healthy, and productive environments for your people.

After months of remote working and virtual meetings, many of your employees may feel isolated. By our very nature, humans are social animals. Being isolated can lead to poor performance and can have negative effects on your company’s culture. Returning to safe spaces where employees can safely interact with their co-workers, colleagues and customers will provide positive psychological effects.

In contrast, some employees, due to health or other reasons, may be afraid of returning to the physical workspace. Because of this, it is critical to develop and communicate strategies to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission. These strategies may include altering the built environment through design and/or simply altering behavior by educating staff, colleagues, and customers.

As terrible as Covid-19 has been, it has forced us to try new approaches to working. We need to make sure we become good at these new skills. Many of them have turned out to be more effective than anyone imagined, and some will become a competitive edge post pandemic.

The more you make your business immune to this virus, the more you will always ensure the health of your business and people. Use these new techniques learned during the pandemic to provide a healthier, more productive workplace in the future. After all, healthy employees are productive employees.

Design matters. Office design plays an important role in making our workplaces safer, healthier and supporting the well-being of our employees, colleagues and customers. While many of us have been working on short-term mitigation strategies for offices during the pandemic, it is likely that many of these strategies will eventually become long term. Not only because they help us stay healthier but because they make good business sense. Investing wisely when making these modifications could have long term benefits.

Artech has many more resources and tools that may be of help. If you would like additional information regarding how design can make a difference in your business, please contact our office.