Best ways to improve wellbeing at work

Guest blog written by Calmer – partners of The BrewHow can you easily improve your physical and mental wellbeing at work? From the get-go, it sounds like a difficult task, one that involves creating strategies and investing in costly methods.

In fact, improving you and your business’s well-being can be quite simple. At Calmer, we encourage entrepreneurs and business teams to look inward and nurture their mental health in ways that work for them. We have therefore listed below 8 practical ideas and improvements for your well-being, motivation, and productivity levels.

(Because, as our motto says, a happy mind makes for a happy business).In any office environment, the lighting plays an unsung but crucial role. By adjusting the ambient lighting and any task lighting (such as a desk lamp or reading lamp) adequately, you can reduce eyestrain, dry eyes, and vision problems that can affect work performance.

How to adjust your workplace lighting:

• Ensure all lighting is at a low level, so that it doesn’t wash out your screens
• Reduce glare by moving the lighting so it doesn’t reflect in screens
• Ensure all lighting has the same colour temperature and hue

In many coworking spaces, such as The Brew, these considerations will have already been made for you.

One of the simplest changes you can make in your office is to outline working hours and stick to them. This may seem like a minor change, or counter-productive if you tend to work overtime, but studies have shown that our productivity falls the more hours we work.

Having clear, set hours or flexible hours per team member provides a sense of autonomy and control. It will encourage everyone to work harder during their work time, with more opportunities for connecting socially outside of those hours.

Alongside improving productivity, fixed working hours may also reduce stress and prevent burnout.

Breakout areas

Up to 60% of us eat lunch at our desks, and the same can be said for tea and coffee breaks. A breakout area provides a welcome escape from the place we spend most of our day, providing a new headspace to think, reflect, and rejuvenate in.

Breakout areas can also be used for informal meetings or team sessions where you want to think more creatively away from desks.

In order to create a breakout area, try implementing:

• Soft furniture
• Comfortable chairs
• Coffee table or side table
• Tea or coffee station
• Screens

If possible, try to position your breakout area away from the office and any busy corridors in order to reduce noise, provide more privacy, and ensure the space is a calm area to destress on a tea break.

Ergonomic Desks

Most offices don’t provide enough room to rearrange furniture; however, you may be able to adjust each individual desk and chair to provide ache-free working.

Ensure team members support their backs with ergonomic chairs, correctly adjusted for their heights and work (e.g., someone working on a computer will need to sit at a height that extends their wrists and forearms level with the floor).

A purposeful business is one that combines selling a product/service with tackling a problem or challenge in the world. Becoming a purposeful business can be as easy as partnering with a charity, putting on charitable events, or monitoring your business activities against the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

While your business’s product or service may not be life-changing, providing a social or charitable incentive alongside purchases may increase your sales, as well as the overall pride and motivation of your team.

While networking has traditionally been seen to be a new business activity, it can provide ample opportunity to foster new relationships with like-minded people, discover new businesses, and forge strong partnerships.

If you, or someone in your office, regularly attends networking and social events, invite team members to come along. It provides an opportunity to get to know them socially while still in a professional setting, as well as time to meet new people.

Coworking offices present some easily accessible networking opportunities. Fellow coworkers can be easily invited, which helps create familiarity when seeing each other in the corridors or shared communal areas.

Mindfulness

With the likes of Facebook, Google, and Adobe encouraging their staff to practice mindfulness, the benefits of encouraging team members to focus on the present on a regular basis are clear.

Mindfulness is the practice of focusing your attention on experiences happening in the present moment, with an attitude of curiosity and kindness. Put simply, the aim of mindfulness is to be present, aware, and observant. Studies have shown that practicing mindfulness reduces procrastination, increases emotional intelligence, and leads to better resolutions of workplace conflicts.

Activities that support the practice of mindfulness:

• Breathing techniques
• Guided affirmations
• Meditation
• Journalling
• Colouring or crafts

All of these activities are easy to introduce, and with services such as the Calmer Community, they can be checked in with at any time, whenever needed.

For individuals and small teams, a coworking community can provide a new social aspect to their working lives that was previously missing. Instead of being isolated in a single office or home office, coworking spaces tend to provide social opportunities alongside their other services.

A good example is the community management at The Brew, provided by their team of Community Managers. They offer a wide range of support services, as well as putting on events and training sessions with the likes of Tania Diggory, a Business NLP Practitioner, Mental Health Trainer, and the Founder of Calmer.

A coworking office also provides an opportunity to feel part of something bigger, with a chance to meet like-minded people, potential partners, or even mentors. Being part of an office community is proven to help with well-being and productivity.

About Calmer

Calmer is a leading UK organisation empowering entrepreneurs and purposeful teams to nurture good mental health and wellbeing. They provide digital courses, workplace training, events, workshops and 1:1 sessions for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and business owners. They believe a happy mind makes for a happy business.

Find us on our website, join our Facebook Community.

About The Brew

The Brew offers coworking space and private offices for teams from 1-100 people in Shoreditch, very close to Old Street underground station.

Membership benefits include free-to-use meeting rooms, unlimited fairtrade teas & coffees, VIP support from the community team, and a fantastic global network. regular business seminars, events, and wellbeing sessions – and lots more!

Check out our FAQ’s or contact us with your requirements.