In 2023, JLL’s Peter Miscovich says leading organizations will embrace a powerful, refreshing new concept: the Regenerative Workplace.
– Stay tuned as we share more 2023 trends for the entire month of December & beyond –
After months or years working from home through a global pandemic, followed by the continuous evolution of changing corporate return-to-office policies, employees’ perceptions and expectations for their workplaces are shifting.
With health and wellbeing at the forefront of employee concerns, businesses need to evolve their approach to designing and managing their work environments moving forward. During 2023, leading organizations will embrace a powerful, refreshing new concept: the Regenerative Workplace.
Defining the Regenerative Workplace
The Regenerative Workplace embodies the idea that when people feel supported mentally, physically and socially, they bring their best selves to work—creating better outcomes for both the individual and the organization. Supporting employees’ mental, social and physical health, regenerative workplaces are inherently human-centric. Health and wellbeing, previously considered part of private life, is now a non-negotiable part of the overall workplace value proposition.
Supporting employees’ mental, social and physical health, regenerative workplaces are inherently human-centric.
Created through thoughtful workplace policies and office design, a regenerative workplace provides people with psychological safety, feelings of inclusion and the ability to achieve. To foster social health, Regenerative Workplaces cultivate social reciprocity, community belonging and a sense of shared responsibility. To support physical wellness, this type of workplace provides flexibility for healthy routines and life/work integration—managing work around life, rather than vice versa.
Wellness before Wealth
The Regenerative Workplace reflects a shift in employee priorities to “wellness before wealth.” According to an April 2022 survey by JLL, 52% of employees expect employers to support their general health and wellbeing and 32% expect employers to support their mental health. Nearly the same proportion, 31%, expect support for their physical health.
However, many employees’ current workplace experience does not meet these expectations. A significant portion of the workforce is stressed, struggling and overwhelmed. Sixty percent report feeling stressed because they have too much work to deliver, while 58% say their mental burden is overwhelming. In other words, workers are over-meeting, over-collaborating and overdoing it in almost every respect of their working lives. It is now time to reimagine how we work through the lens of the Regenerative Workplace.
Key Components of a Regenerative Workplace
The Regenerative Workplace recognizes employees’ need for more flexibility, better support and greater wellness following the anxiety and distress of the darkest moments of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pursuit of wellness is personal—which means that the human-centric workplace should allow for customization and it should empower workers with the flexibility and freedom to work according to their individual needs and preferences.
The Regenerative Workplace will help organizations enable new levels of human performance, creativity and business performance.
To create this type of workplace, companies need to focus on five key elements:
- Energy: Recognize that the health and energy of your people is your most valuable asset.
- Empathy: Embrace empathy-based management to enable human performance.
- Life + Work: Offer hybrid workplace flexibility, greater autonomy and work/life integration.
- Wellbeing: Prioritize health and wellbeing to drive human performance, innovation and creativity.
- Caring: Display a high level of care for the individual and for collective wellness for everyone.
Workers may be going back to the office, but they’re not going back to the outdated norms of work. In 2023, employees and employers alike will embrace flexibility and wellness, creating Regenerative Workplaces that will advance a more human-centric vision of work that supports employees mental, social and physical health. The Regenerative Workplace will help organizations enable new levels of human performance, creativity and business performance.
