The COVID 19 pandemic has shown how fragile humankind is and has forced us to think afresh and much deeper about how we work and live our lives. The very word office has become an amorphous term embracing the traditional office, the home, the café or wherever it is convenient to be. Working hours have become flexible too to meet social needs. Authors, music composers and artists have often worked in a solitary home studio environment and surveys of office workers indicate they like to have spaces that are flexible for team working but also ones that are quieter for concentrated thinking. Flexibility and adaptability will remain key considerations. For some like those that need and want to attend schools and universities as learning on line has limitations,  or those people who work in hospitals and on transport, working at home is not an option. 

The evidence is mounting that being home 100% is stressful(1) as there are distractions-- especially if you have children learning at home-- and a lack of social contact. Research at Stanford University indicates many factors contribute to Zoom fatigue. Online platforms are convenient for gathering international contacts but stilted in terms of human communication.

Infection risk has always existed especially in crowded places but this time we saw that the Covid 19 virus spreads so quickly it endangers large groups so reducing social contact became imperative. Although we have vaccines now for COVID 19 we can expect with increasing world populations more viruses to invade our world so the lessons we are learning now will help us to control their spread in the future. Florence Nightingale noted the advantages of high spaces with large windows that could open a little or a lot and there is some truth in this old advice.

To reduce infection risk means ventilation, occupancy densities, surface materials, hygiene and cleaning regimes all need some deeper thought. The practices now being put into operation by many companies will continue beyond Covid. But COVID 19 has brought some advantages if it results in buildings having better ventilation and air filtration; cleaner spaces and more effective maintenance and continual post-occupancy evaluation. But beyond this there is human behaviour. We will be more aware of our impact on others and develop  a more kindly office etiquette bearing in mind shouting or excessive loud voices, coughs and sneezes all increase the viral load in the air.  

There is a lot of debate about life-work balance, child-care and other social concerns. A hybrid system of working can help to ease some of these concerns to some extent. 

Health and wellbeing far beyond safety issues together with climate change are priority issues. We have high medical absenteeism due to musculoskeletal conditions, mental stress and building sickness syndrome. This is costly. As telemedicine and wearable technology are making us more aware of our personal health it is likely that we will expect more from our workplaces. The deep connections between us and our environment are no longer just anecdotal but as we measure ourselves more we are seeing increasingly real objective evidence laid before us. This is positive in the sense that prevention is better than cure so telemedicine points the way to saving NHS costs. But with this there are responsibilities. Companies must be transparent and develop a trust with their employees concerning data observation and use.  Companies have a duty to provide healthy workplaces but with hybrid working how does this apply when employees working from home?

Two current research projects indicate where we may be heading. One group in Switzerland(2) is developing bio-sensors which can be ingested and detect antibodies hence immunity levels which would advance personal virus testing to a new height. Another group at Columbia University(3) have developed tiny neural dust sensors that can be implanted in the body and track temperatures and oxygen levels but eventually it is expected that they will offer data on blood pressure, glucose levels and respiratory conditions.  

The outlook is positive but challenging as workplaces become more personalised and designed for health and wellbeing and this includes reducing infection risk of course. Planners, designers, constructors, manufacturers, facilities managers are all involved in achieving this as suppliers. Companies need an ethics code highlighting health and wellbeing enshrined within it so factors like medical absenteeism and staff turnover will be reduced. Occupants can help to through adopting healthy lifestyles. If we all play our part then human energy levels will be high and people will feel happier and companies will meet high productivity levels whilst NHS should see costs stabilise. 

Derek Clements-Croome @d.j.clements-croome@reading.ac.uk

May 2021

References:

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2020/04/23/three-warning-signs-that-your-remote-employees-are-starting-to-crack-under-the-stress-of-working-from-home/

2. Use of Wearables In The Office: A review and examples in practice - https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bco.org.uk%2FResearch%2FPublications%2FUse_of_Wearables_In_The_Office_-_A_review_and_examples_in_practice.aspx&data=04%7C01%7Cd.j.clementscroome%40reading.ac.uk%7Ceb1ad6bb1e604b3278c208d9116005fe%7C4ffa3bc4ecfc48c09080f5e43ff90e5f%7C0%7C0%7C637559926375528799%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=I8STrmyWYAQjmj4oxwXU9YsJDrBst1sYNaNFsSSZrEw%3D&reserved=0

3. Chen Shi, Victoria Andino-Pavlovsky, Stephen A. Lee, Tiago Costa, Jeffrey Elloian, Elisa E. Konofagou, Kenneth L. Shepard. Application of a sub–0.1-mm3 implantable mote for in vivo real-time wireless temperature sensing. Science Advances, 2021; 7 (19): eabf6312 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abf6312