What is the WELL standard?
In light of National Stress Awareness Week, we thought we would look at a few elements of the WELL Standard and discuss how they could enhance wellbeing and help with stress in the workplace.
The WELL standard has been around for a few years now but it’s becoming more and more desirable for companies. We’ve highlighted just a few of the elements below and what technologies can aid in reducing stress in the workplace.
Air
The WELL Air concept aims to ensure high levels of good indoor air quality across a building’s lifetime through diverse strategies that include source elimination or reduction.
If not controlled and monitored properly, poor indoor air quality, can lead to poor health and decreased wellbeing. In the ‘Air Quality and Wellbeing at Work’ survey it was found that 80% think that poor indoor air quality could be having a negative impact on their health. By using air quality sensors, you can maintain the right level of humidity and enable all employees to benefit from a comfortable working environment.
Lighting
The WELL Light concept promotes exposure to light and aims to create lighting environments that are optimal for visual, mental and biological health.
Lighting has a huge impact on our circadian rhythm. Good lighting has many positive effects – it enhances our wellbeing, productivity and alertness. Human centric lighting (HCL) does exactly this, HCL works by mimicking the levels of sunlight throughout the day, changing in colour, angle and intensity to work with our circadian rhythm.
It puts focus on both the visual and non-visual effects of lighting. Not only do people need light to perform visual tasks, but light is also an important time-reference for our internal body clock. Ideally, lighting should enhance productivity in the workplace, and we should provide levels of natural and artificial lighting to help wellbeing and overall office comfort.
Sound
The WELL Sound concept aims to strengthen occupant health and wellbeing through the identification and mitigation of acoustical comfort parameters that shape occupant experiences in the built environment.
Excessive noise in the workplace is proven to decrease wellbeing, comfort and productivity within the workplace with 44% of UK office workers claiming that it has a negative impact on their overall wellbeing and 65% reported that noise in the workplace impacted on their ability to complete work in an accurate and timely manner.
Sound masking is an effective way of enhancing productivity, privacy and wellbeing in the workplace. It works by injecting an extra noise into the environment, sound counter-intuitive, but it works be creating an ambient level of noise for employees to adhere to and masks those unwanted noise such as; laughing, colleagues chatting and doors banging.
Conclusion
These are just a few ways of how employers can help to reduce stress within the workplace, for more information and help on stress, you can visit Mind’s website here.
