You’ve read about workplaces that offer everything from healthy takeout meals to on-site yoga, massages, and napping pods. Maybe that describes your approach. Or, perhaps your organization has held back, not knowing quite where—or if—to start.

Wherever you are on the healthy workplace continuum, this Compliance Report will be of interest. It’s an intriguing Q&A with Leigh Stringer, author of the 2016 book, The Healthy Workplace: How to Improve the Well-Being of Your Employees—and Boost Your Company’s Bottom Line.

In the book, available on Amazon.com, Stringer encourages employers to take proactive steps to boost employee health, and she makes a strong case for the benefits. Stringer is also the author of The Green Workplace: Sustainable Strategies that Benefit Employees, the Environment, and the Bottom Line.

Q: Please introduce yourself to our readers.
A: Sure. I’m a workplace design expert and writer. I work for EYP, a global architecture, engineering, and building technology firm that specializes in sustainable, healthy, high-performance buildings.

Q: How did you get involved in healthy workplace issues?
A: At a former job I had reached a crisis point—I was working 80 hours a week, I was exhausted, and my husband and my kids missed me. I’m a Type A personality, and thought I could continue working crazy hours, but in my 40s, I just couldn’t “power through” any longer. I wasn’t productive any more. I was drinking coffee during the day to keep going and wine at night to de-stress.

Finally, I told my boss that I was going to quit or take a sabbatical and he graciously said, “We’ll see you in 3 months.” During that time, I started researching health and well-being to figure things out for myself and, possibly, to share with others. I was curious to learn about and try new things. (By the way, today I’m working about 30 hours a week, getting a lot done, and feeling so much better!)

Q: There are conflicting views about the value of investing in health and wellness. In your view, what’s in it for organizations?
A:  The big plus is that it impacts their bottom line in a real way. Study after study is showing that employers who care about the performance of their people—how they work and how they get stressed—are seeing reductions in healthcare costs. And they’re seeing incredible amounts of revenue coming in the door in ways they couldn’t have imagined before they started paying attention to their people. Recent studies that found that health-conscious companies delivered more than double the stock returns of companies that do not invest in health.

Q: What did you learn about stress in researching the book?
A: My employer, EYP, has partnered with the Center for Health & the Global Environment at the Harvard School of Public Health to pilot an index to measure organizational well-being—integrating health, culture, engagement, performance, and the built environment. One of our big learnings so far is that we (EYP) are impacted twice as much by mental health than by physical health in terms of absenteeism and presenteeism [being on the job but not fully productive]. We also learned that women, especially those under the age of 45 at our firm, are more stressed and anxious than others—these are more typically the people with children and older parents who are taking on a lot of burden.

Often, we don’t “get it” until there’s a crisis—you’re working 80 hours a week for 15 years and all of a sudden you get divorced or have a heart attack. We’re such a hard-working society, and I respect that. But it’s killing us and it’s affecting our health and our productivity. My CEO told me that he’s reading my book for the second time, and that he’s been doing some things differently like sleeping and working out and it’s made a huge difference. He, like the rest of us, have to come to this on a personal level.

Q: Staying with stress for a moment, what are some of the best practices you’ve seen to address it?
A: There are many ways to reduce stress. One is to take advantage of “biophilia,” or our preference as humans to be in and among nature. You can do this by surrounding yourself with views of nature, water, plants, or even fake plants.

One way to use biophilia is by organizing interior environments using elements that are similar to a natural environment. The environmental consulting firm Terrapin Bright Green cites studies that have documented advantages in the workplace including impressive stress recovery, lower blood pressure, enhanced mental stamina, and decreased violence.

Mindfulness is another technique for fighting stress. It’s an awareness of being present with what is happening now, and not fretting about the past or worrying about the future. There are a number of mindfulness apps out there. One of my favorites is Buddhify. [Buddhify offers more than 80 short, guided audio exercises that can be done alongside daily activities.] I can use a 5- or 10-minute one based on what I’m doing—walking, working, moving between meetings, or [when I] feel myself getting tense coming into work from the car.

Science backs this up 100 percent. A study out of Harvard Medical School showed that after 8 weeks of a very specific mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course, the part of the brain that reacts to stress actually shrinks, and the part of the brain that improves executive function and creativity and compassion—all the things we need in the modern workplace to be innovative—grew.

A marketing analyst at a major financial organization invited colleagues to sit around a conference table and join her for mindfulness exercises. It caught on, and now colleagues regularly join on conference calls from across the country and around the world. Participants report feeling better, being more resilient, and having less stress. I’ve seen a similar pattern again and again. At the financial services company, The Motley Fool, an employee who wanted to quit and become a personal trainer was convinced to stay and do training for coworkers instead. Today, the company’s highly customized wellness program has an unbelieve 95 percent participation rate under chief wellness officer Sam Whiteside.

Q: In the book, you discuss the things that irritate employees about the workplace and affect productivity. Would you share some of those?
A: By far, the issues brought up most frequently have to do with acoustics, crowding, indoor air quality, and individual comfort. Sometimes this is due to open offices, but often the issues stem from the fact that the building is old or designed poorly. Noise is an issue in almost every workplace. The key is our ability to control what we hear. Studies show that when people have a degree of control over noise, they are less distracted by it. And contrary to popular belief, noise interruptions during simple tasks can improve productivity. Interruptions during complex work require more time to reorient.

Crowding can cause stress, too. People who work in high-rise buildings tend to feel more crowded than those who do not. The effect is reduced for people on the upper stories, likely because they have better views and access to daylight.

The quality of the indoor environment has a significant influence on well-being and productivity. Headaches and sickness are a common result of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and other factors. Indoor environments—where many of us spend 90 percent or more of our time—often contain levels of pollutants that may be two to five times higher than outdoor levels. Sources of indoor air pollution include combustion, building materials, cleaners, heating and cooling systems, and piles of paper and clutter that lie around and collect dust. A study of green buildings found that improvements in temperature, lighting, and indoor air quality could reduce respiratory illness, allergies, asthma, and sick building syndrome while increasing worker comfort. This translated to a productivity gain in the billions of dollars.

Q: You also come to some interesting conclusions about the effect of lighting.
A: Yes. One of the things we’re starting to realize is that lighting in the built environment—any type of lighting—is much darker compared to outside. Shorter days can trigger moodiness, lethargy, or even depression. We need more intense light to rest our biological clock. Employers should consider installing a circadian lighting system that provides appropriate light waves to trigger wakefulness. These signal the SCN, the part of the eye that is responsible for calibrating our day/night cycles.

The light that is important to our circadian rhythm is different from the light that is important to our visual system. Research shows that people who perceive their office lighting to be high-quality rate their space as more attractive and show greater well-being at the end of the day. There are a number of LED bulbs [from Lighting Science and other suppliers] that may make a difference in energy levels and sleep quality.

Q:  You write about the value of designing for health. What does this mean, and how can employers do it?
A: Design can support mindfulness, as we’ve discussed, and it can also help improve sleep, movement, and exercise. One way to do this is to use a sit-stand desk, or just moving around if you have a laptop. The idea is to move the large leg muscles and encourage blood flow. There’s been some great research out of the Washington University School of Business about the benefits of standing rather than sitting. A study found that those who were standing had more creative ideas and didn’t feel the need to hold onto bad ideas as much as those who were working seated.

One approach that’s hit the market is known as choice architecture. It’s a very interesting concept based on the idea that space “nudges” us to make choices. A good example is the placement of certain products at the end of the aisle in the grocery store, where most people are likely to see them. A lot of companies are getting into this. It’s not about taking away options. If people want to have chips, they should be able to have chips, but the idea is to make other choices more convenient or obvious.

Johnson and Johnson made a simple change in their cafeterias. If someone ordered chicken, for example, the server on the line would ask if the employee wanted fries as a side dish. The servers were instructed to ask, instead, if the employees would like salad as a first choice. It worked!

Another interesting trend is toward glass refrigerators, for example, at workplaces where they subsidize food and snacks. If you can look through the refrigerator and see eggs or salad or tuna, people are more likely to grab those items than if they are hidden behind stainless steel doors. A related idea is to put healthier choices like fruit and nuts into a glass bowl. Employees are going to get hungry, so the best defense is a good offense. Plan on people snacking every 2 to 4 hours, and encourage snacks like a handful of nuts or other healthful choices for 100–150 calories.

Q:  Sleep is a real problem for so many of us these days. What best practices have you discovered? 
A: I definitely have a couple! Caffeine can have a stimulating effect as soon as 15 minutes after it is consumed. But once in the body, caffeine persists for several hours. One sleep expert recommends putting up a note in your break room or cafeteria reminding employees that drinking caffeine past 4:00 p.m. can impact their sleep. Also, make decaffeinated beverages more attractive, or even stop coffee and tea service late in the day.

Dan Pardi, a researcher with Stanford and Leiden University in the Netherlands, points to a new type of “shift work” where people work in the daytime, come home and spend some time with their families, then return to work on their computers until late at night. This, he says, significantly alters our internal rhythms because of variations in light exposure.

To help employees turn off and wind down, Volkswagen announced that its servers would stop sending e-mails 30 minutes after the end of shifts, and would start again half an hour before the individual was due back at work. If that won’t work at your site, consider asking senior staff and managers to refrain from sending e-mails to staff members after 8:00 p.m.

And, of course, if you have shift workers, you must take steps to help them sleep better and be more productive on the job. Avoid scheduling workers for a number of night shifts in a row or frequently rotating shifts. Other shift work sleep tips:

• Create an environment where employees work together to keep themselves alert.
• Keep the workplace well-lit with bright lights to promote alertness.
• Encourage activity during breaks, like a walk or other exercise.
• Avoid assigning tedious or boring tasks toward the end of shifts when employees may feel the drowsiest.

Q: What about the return on investment in a healthy workplace? Is the payback worth the effort and expense?
A: Yes. The easiest thing to measure is your payback on health insurance. Metastudies I’ve seen from researchers I respect show a payoff of about 6 dollars for every 1 dollar put into a good health and well-being program. Those who are careful and selective about the programs they implement can begin to see a return within a year. And, you can expect to see changes in areas like recruiting and retention within a couple of years.

It’s so expensive and exhausting to retrain and retool people and never get the benefit of a wise workforce that stays with you because you care about their well-being. If employers think doing business as usual is the way to go, they’re not going to be in business at some point in the future. Companies that “get” wellness are climbing over others who don’t understand the benefit of creating a business with people who can’t wait to get up in the morning to come to work for you. The bottom line will take care of itself when you take care of your people!

There are always going to be doubters—those who are skeptical about the need to take care of themselves and their employees. Leaders get stuck in a rut worrying how the business is doing this quarter versus last quarter. But from time to time you have to take a step back and ask, “Is the smartest way to run our business to run people into the ground and hire new ones every 2 years?”

Q: What other advice do you have for readers who want to bolster existing programs or launch them?
A: The big thing to remember is not to bite off the elephant all at once. Determine what your biggest issue is. If it’s stress, start a modest mindfulness program. Find some folks who are interested, and give them an opportunity to lead the program.

One big learning of my research has been the scope of the wellness industry—it’s three times the size of the pharmaceutical industry. Whether it’s spas or personalized medicine or workplace programs, the idea of not treating sickness, but instead preventing sickness, is growing like crazy. There is a lot of opportunity for innovators, entrepreneurs, and influencers in the field. The question for employers is how to make it more than “just another program?” And the answer is to find people who are really passionate about it, who want to take this on and invest in it. Programs built like that have a lot more staying power.

Q: Thanks for sharing this valuable information with our readers!
A: My pleasure.