Wellbeing, as an office design concept, used to be thought of by many business owners as a sort of new age, rather vague idea concerned with dotting a few plants about, making sure that people had decent office chairs, and that the room temperatures stayed within reasonable bounds.

Prominent amongst current concerns for business owners are their employees’ mental wellbeing and productivity. Mental health issues such as depression and stress are major concerns as according to a report from the Health and Safety Executive, stress accounted for 45% of all working days lost in the UK during 2015-16 due to ill health.

So the importance of an employee’s health and happiness in the office has never been more apparent. Research also shows that people with higher levels of wellbeing are more resistant to colds, have a quicker recovery time from illness, a greater life expectancy, feel less pain, are more creative and are better at problem solving.

The health and happiness of your workforce can be greatly improved through elements of your office design. Office work is changing, and is increasingly about communication and ideas; behaviours are more collaborative and innovative, rather than repetitive, meaning that it is time for an informed look at our office planning.

Consideration needs to be given to the varied way we work today, areas for quiet concentration or one to one meetings alongside areas for collaboration will cover the needs of most businesses. When it comes to concepts such as hot desking in these days of fluid and part time working, different individuals will have different preferences, some folk are happy to sit wherever there happens to be a space that day, others prefer to occupy the same space and personalise their area, perhaps with pictures of their children, an aspirational object such as a sports car or a holiday destination, we are all different.

The idea of the completely open plan office has fallen out of favour over recent times as it has become associated with stress and anxiety because of the propensity for disturbance and distraction. The need for fixed desks or workstations, is also being questioned, with modern offices being designed to accommodate more varied work settings, known as activity-based working (ABW), which can not only be good for the social and collaborative aspects of work but gives more opportunities for movement.

Offices designed with these issues in mind can make people feel better emotionally and physically, and can help them with concentrating and collaborating. The physical wellbeing of sedentary office workers is high profile currently because of all the data, which maintains that sitting still is the new smoking because our bodies were designed to move.

Good design will allow free movement around the office with layouts that eliminate trailing cables, and allow personnel to move around the office without bumping into desks or needing to negotiate sharp corners. Workspaces perceived to be cramped have a negative effect on job satisfaction and efficiency; as each employee must have sufficient space to effectively carry out their jobs

There is an irony in that some of these trendy new settings being proposed may not be that good for us. Slouching into those squishy sofas while working from handheld devices, so good for relaxed one to one’s, brainstorming sessions and collaborative working are not so good for us when used for extended periods.

We all recognise the importance of suitable lighting for different areas of our homes, but what about in the office? Maximum amounts of daylight are highly beneficial, but in our climate it will always be necessary to supplement light levels by artificial means.

Different levels of light are required for different tasks, and just as different employees will have individual working preferences they will with lighting too. To avoid eyestrain, headaches and problems associated with bad posture, the addition of a task light to individual areas gives each employee the option of customising their own lighting levels per task, ultimately enhancing their wellbeing.

Appropriately chosen plants and natural greenery, providing they are looked after and not left to wither in the pot, have also been shown to have a positive effect on our well being indeed a recent study found employee wellbeing to be 15% higher when natural elements such as greenery and sunlight were incorporated.

Thinking about sunlight and plants leads us on to air quality and temperature control. The office being too hot or not warm enough is one of the things employees complain about the most, checking your thermostat settings, insulation standards and having your boiler and air conditioning units serviced regularly will not just save you money on your energy bills, it will improve productivity and staff morale.

All these factors will help to create a work environment that enhances employee wellbeing, and in turn, has a positive effect on your business and productivity as a whole.