Transcript: How To Advocate for A Healthier, More Productive Workforce w/ Leigh Stringer

The way that we live now is so much more cushier than ever before. Times have never been better. Why are we complaining? But the truth is that we just don't have it right. We don't have it calibrated right.

And at the end of the day, our companies are run by people. We just can't help it. We have, we stress out. We have an amygdala. It works this way.

We, you know, it flares up at the least appropriate moment sometimes and really causes us to lose focus and we get tired and we need to eat and healthy food, not donuts, you know, kind of thing, which will help keep us on our game. And I think just paying attention to that as a company, it's like the machine. Like we spend all this money on equipment in our company and just fine tune it and oil it on a regular basis. Really pay attention to what it needs to run as its maximum efficiency.

And we don't think about our people in the same way. The building industry can definitely help and it is good business to do so. There is a value placed on a healthy building. A bunch of researchers have gotten together and said, let's just compare all these companies that won all these great awards to the S&P 500 over the last 10 years. How are they performing?

Like are they really rocking it or not? And they have seen threefold return. It's a balance, right? And a lot of, in America anyway, you know, unfortunately or fortunately, the burden of healthcare is on our companies, right, to pay for it. It's not an automatic right unless you're over 65.

So it's, you know, I mean, when you really take a hard look at the responsibility, it is the individual, but it needs to be the company supporting that. Hello, I'm Brittany Campbell-Turner and this is the Constructor Podcast, episode number 41. Hello and welcome to the Constructor Podcast, the best way to build it. This podcast is dedicated to helping property owners have certainty in their decisions about their construction projects. We talk about fostering trusting relationships within your project teams, help you to understand how to lower risk, be under budget and on schedule in your construction projects, and most importantly, exceed your end-users desires.

My talk today is with Lee Stringer. Lee Stringer is senior workplace expert for EYP Architecture and Engineering and author of Healthy Workplace, How to Improve the Well-Being of Your Employees and Boost Your Company's Bottom Line. We talk about the business case for a healthy workplace, fueling the human engine, and choosing the right design elements to enable productivity. We had an amazing talk and without further ado, go ahead and listen into our interview. Good morning, Lee.

Welcome to the Constructor Podcast. Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining today. You're the senior workplace expert for EYP Architecture and Engineering and you're researching employee health and productivity with Harvard School of Public Health, the Center for Active Design and also some other organizations. Could you give us a brief history of the workplace?

The nickel tour. Well, the workplace as we know it today, and I'm really specifically thinking about office space in particular, working indoors. We've only been doing that for the last couple of hundred years. So it's really shifted everything about the way that we behave during our day. Back in the earlier industrial revolution, which was probably the first time we really were en masse working indoors, it was cold and dank and smelly and terrible air quality and we all know the stories.

It was actually so bad, I heard this pretty recently, that in Manchester, England and places in London, they actually had this thing called gin carts where people really were drinking gin consistently throughout the day. It was so bad, we were drunk most of the time, which caused all kinds of other social problems. But anyway, and then we go wise to this, I realize being around large machinery and drinking not a good thing. So then we've slowly been moving to less more enclosed office and more open office space.

That's kind of gone back and forth over several shifts over the last several decades. And so now we're at this place where we are in environments that are actually good, I mean relatively so in terms of air quality and other things. We spend enormous amounts of time indoors and often in environments and sitting down first off and staring at devices, kind of Cro-Magnon style, just hunched over, looking at these things. And it really is over the last few years we're really seeing a change. I talked to an epidemiologist who looked at the last 50 years of work and one of the things he was just trying to figure out was, all right, how many calories are we burning just based on the typical jobs in the United States?

And he found, looking at every decade, he found that sure enough that we are burning something like 100 less calories than our grandparents and we're consuming a lot more processed foods and the result is we're all suffering from obesity and our BMIs are very high and it's just this kind of slow progress. It's like we're frogs in a pot. And we've heard that statement, right? So we're turning up the water slowly and we're like, oh no, we're fine in here, no problem, but boiling to death, right?

And so it is a problem and it's affecting every bit of our society and it's also, we're really stressed out and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we're not moving very much and we're not able to kind of get away and relax. We're just kind of working solid for long periods of time. So that's a bit of the state where we are now. That's a great brief outline of what has taken place over time from the industrial age. And I must say, I am grateful to you because you, having read your book, The Healthy Workplace, both my husband and I, we have been moving more.

You've inspired us to just get up and go walk outside as much as possible. I mean, it's just one of those things where you just don't think about the effects of sitting and looking at screens all day long like that. Although the workplace is better, as you said, than it was, I don't know, 60, 70 years ago, there's still that active mindset shift that needs to take place for you to understand what the effects are and then try to combat them. So thank you for doing that, number one.

Oh, my pleasure. That feels so good. And one thing I noticed is that there's a connectedness here between employee engagement, well-being, and environment based upon what you've been talking about in your book. Could you talk to us a little bit about how those things interplay? I know you talked a little bit about well-being, but if you could just kind of touch on those three things, because that's going to be the basic high-level outline of our discussion today.

Right. Well, it's really kind of the ultimate question, right? How can we all be more productive in terms of the question for business anyway? That's what we care about. How can we get the most out of our brains and be the most creative and the most thoughtful and get ahead of the marketplace and capture value and all the other smart things we know we need to be doing in business?

So one of the things I did in my research was to interview the folks from the Health and Human Performance Index in Orlando. And they really set me straight. They focus on helping elite athletes to increase their performance, get from like an A game to an A plus Olympic champion type game. And for 30 years, they've been helping them with nutrition and movement and really focused on improving everything about what they do so that they bring home the cup, you know, bring home the trophy. And they're now applying that same thinking though around sleep and stress and all the things that they worried about with their athletes to corporate America.

And their big ah-ha, their big rule value is helping people manage energy, managing it from point to point. You know, in the case of a tennis match, it's like exhausting and you're going from point to point. How do you manage energy? And how do you manage it between matches and between training and your game day? And so really for the rest of us, I think there are great lessons there too about managing energy.

And when it all comes down to it, when you really think about, you know, how much you're able to give in a given day, you have so much more when you've been sleeping, when you've been pacing yourself, allowing your brain to relax a little bit, going for a walk, just not trying to hammer down day after day after day after week after week. Because doing that, you can do that for a short period of time, but longer period of time you really, you really can't. And the burnout is rampant in a lot of our companies and it causes all kinds of productivity issues.

So I think it causes presenteeism as well as absenteeism, right? We push ourselves and push ourselves and we get sick. Or we show up at work and we're just, just not really there 100%, you know, we don't have our game on. It's interesting. So we measured in my own company, we did a little study with Harvard looking at, it's called the Human Performance Index actually.

It's work with Johnson & Johnson initially who acquired the Human Performance Institute. It's a lot of the same evaluation tools they use and added some aspects about the built environment as well. And we found, yes, that sure enough mental health was a huge issue for us as well as physical health issues that caused absenteeism and it was millions of dollars a year. You know, when you really get down to the number of hours, labor hours were missing. It's big numbers.

So there's a cost, you know, there's a health cost. A lot of people focus on that. The ROI of your health care costs go up, especially if you're self-insured. So a lot of, there's health promotion programs and things like that companies are really focused on to improve the cost of insurance for their employees and also what they're having to bear as a corporation, which is great. But the real cost, I mean, the big, big issue is the productivity cost.

It's the value you're not capturing in the marketplace because your people don't have 100% to give. And at the end of the day, our companies are run by people. There's a lot of AI out there. I'm really optimistic about some, you know, some things that we can automate in my own day, frankly. But we're people and we just can't help it.

We have, we stress out, we have an amygdala. It works this way. We, you know, it flares up at the least appropriate moment sometimes and really causes us to lose focus and we get tired and we need to eat and healthy food, not donuts, you know, kind of thing, which will help keep us on our game. I think just paying attention to that as a company, it's like the machine. Like we spend all this money on equipment in our company and just fine tune it and oil it on a regular basis.

Really pay attention to what it needs to run is at this maximum efficiency. We don't think about our people in the same way and we should. Great. I'm really excited about the AI stuff too. I actually interviewed someone who started a robotics company for people who work in warehouses.

So it's essentially a conveyor system that walks around with the employee. But exactly that type of thing. Yeah. I think it's very interesting from a historical perspective that we're just now seeing the connections today or in most recent years. And I really like that you highlighted a number of those things in your book.

I want to talk a little bit more deeply about the problem. You mentioned a lot about healthcare costs, insurance costs of course as that relates. But in your book you specifically mentioned that 70% of Americans are overweight. I had no idea that particular metric was that high. How does that really affect productivity?

Well just using a raw numbers perspective. So 70% of Americans are overweight. About half of those folks are obese and a good number are grossly obese. Which is really the scary part. I mean a little bit overweight kind of deal with that.

But once you get into levels of severe obesity all these chronic health issues come up. And so type 2 diabetes and the musculoskeletal issues, I mean those are chronic in their own way. But just those basic chronic diseases that keep, cardiomatobacillus diseases that come up over and over again as taking people out of the workforce for very long periods of time. People needing surgery. People just not being able to do their daily tasks or having to be hospitalized for one reason or another.

And large amounts of doctors visits just to manage severe obesity often. I mean some people their bodies can handle it but most, it catches up with you unfortunately. And so that is where the real cost is. Particularly from a health care perspective because that's where all the burden is. You're healthy people.

You're often the younger people frankly. But also people who are grossly overweight. I mean that is where the burden of health care is in our society. It affects the companies as well. Particularly if they're self-insured and that is really a growing trend.

Even my company is 600 people. We are self-insured. So we really think about these things. And it's not going away. I mean if you look at the numbers, there are all kinds of interesting, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has a map.

You can actually look at your state and see. So obesity, average obesity levels in your state. And look at it over time. And it is pretty shocking how quickly this has changed just over the last couple of decades. So I think it's again it's sneaking up on us and something that is real from a health care cost.

Particularly when it comes to absenteeism and also the cost of health care. That really just kind of brings it into a good understanding of the problem. From a company standpoint, we do talk a lot about the owner's perspective and how to reduce uncertainty in their construction projects. But it really starts with what is the goal you're trying to achieve. And if you're wanting to enable your employees to do the best job that they possibly can, they need to be there physically.

So having higher health concerns and having to go to doctor visits and just the stress of that alone, that's not going to get them to be performing well. And it sounds almost a little bit of, it sounds less personalized if you think about it like that. But as a business, honestly, it's something that you truly have to think about and really care about your employees at that level. Yeah, and a lot of times these health care plans, their incentives, it feels a little coercive. Like, oh, if you don't get this blood drawn and if you don't do the following things, go to the smoking cessation program or whatever, we're going to increase your health care cost or we're not going to give you the discount kind of thing.

That can feel pretty coercive. So it's a balance, right? And a lot of, in America anyway, unfortunately or fortunately, the burden of health care is on our companies to pay for it. It's not an automatic right unless you're over 65. And so it feels weird, companies having an interest in your personal health life.

It's like, oh, it's a little intrusive here. That's my thing. Only in America do we feel this way probably. But where you're on my turf, don't mess with me. My body is my problem.

Unfortunately, it isn't just your problem. It's your family's problem. And all the folks who take care of you also have to leave work when you get sick or have some sort of chronic issue. And it is the burden of the people that you work with. All your colleagues have to pick up for you and your company too.

So it's, you know, I mean, when you really take a hard look at the responsibility, it is the individual, but it needs to be the company supporting that and really getting behind it or the institution in whatever way they can to take away the, I think the culture is a really big deal. We haven't talked about that yet, but just this culture of, well, if you're not sitting at your desk and looking at a computer, you're not working. You know, really, really, you know, come on.

If I look at a computer for 12 hours, I will collapse. So please let me get up, move around, take a break. You know, we do need that. We have to pay really close attention to the nature of our workflow. And if we're staring for long periods of time and not moving and not standing, there's all kinds of problems.

And in fact, sitting is the new, you know, smoking. We talk about that a lot. That's it, hit the news. But there's also people suffering from deep vein thrombosis from sitting long periods of time. You know, I used to hear about that on planes, like, oh, people on long flights, they get this terrible, it's really a horrible thing to happen anyway.

So people are getting it just from sitting at their job now. And it's, you know, this is a problem. So I think it's up to the leaders of organizations and the leaders, the people everywhere to take some steps to encourage people to really be healthy, to do what they need to do, to take care of themselves and to give them permission to get up and move and whatever it is, you know, whatever it looks like for them to go outside for a little while. All these are important and not it's not frivolous.

It's called taking care of yourself so you can be productive. So let's talk a little bit about some of those specific things that help us to maintain the human engine as you kind of describe it. Let's talk about the importance of it and then some of the specific items that you recommend. So, so many, so many. One of my favorite is sleep because so many people I know struggle with it.

And sleep is something that we working indoors kind of we lose our biological clock. We lose some of the effectiveness of it because we are out of the sun. So we have this thing called the circadian rhythm. And it is we have lots of biorhythms in the body, but this particular one is triggers sleepiness. And there's a production of melatonin that happens during the day.

And as light waves, you know, as the sun starts to set, melatonin kicks in somewhere around eight at night, seven or eight at night, starts to kick in a little bit. And then big time around bedtime, which should be around nine or ten for most people. It varies, of course. But yeah, it just really floods the brain. It's like, oh, I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired.

And melatonin is that particular chemical which works really well. And then what triggers the stopping of melatonin is the sun. And historically and basically light waves of a certain frequency hit the back of your eye. It's a nerve in the back of your eye, which trigger the reduction of melatonin and just shutting it shutting it down. So that starts producing it again.

And one of the best things that you can do is to get outside, actually get outside in sunlight, take your coffee outside, open the window, walk out in your patio, whatever you can do to to actually get a good dose. And I've talking to sleep experts, they say you should really get as much sun as you can, as you can squeeze in during your work day or your weekend day or non-workday. And do so for, you know, an hour if you can spread over some time doesn't matter.

But the morning, the morning is the really key time to do that. Working out, go for run, go for walk, walk your dog, whatever. Do that in the morning and that will set your system. Now there are lots of other tools that you can use like circadian lighting, which is the new thing. But there are all kinds of fun light bulbs.

There's one by lighting science I really like called awake and alert. And you can literally plug in a bulb right by your desk or someplace where you want to be awake. And it is amazing. It really is bright. It makes you feel more awake.

And some people claim more happy, which is cool. But there are lots of fun ways to do that. But I think sleep is really foundational and something that I mean, there are all kinds of good habits that we all should should be doing to which, you know, we could talk all day about. But I feel like the light thing is more important than we think. And we've been working in the dark relatively.

I mean, when you look at the amount of luminescence or the amount of lumens that are available, luxe, sorry, in the atmosphere, it's, you know, on a really bright day in Florida, it's 100,000 lux whereas in our offices, it's like 10, you know, for lucky. So our bodies really need more. Need more sun. If we can get it. Yes.

Yes. You know, it's so funny because I've noticed on the iPhones, they've added that different light setting. It kind of looks like more amberish. And I've actually downloaded something similar on my laptop. It's called, I think, flux.io.

I'll put in the show notes for you guys. Just so that when you're working at night and you know that you're planning on going to sleep afterwards, you are not wired from having that light just kind of keeping you awake actually helped me a lot because I had trouble sleeping. So I really like that point. Well, my best advice is to turn it off. But yes, those other tools can help.

I do think it is better like in your sleep behavior, kind of good practice is to have a time when you just say, nope, I'm turning it off now. I can get it in the morning. Work will always be there in the morning. And the other thing we do that's really horrible is we email people later. Oh, don't forget email Bob, because I'll just send it out at 10 p.m.

Because I'm not going to remember tomorrow. I'm taking the kids to school, blah, blah, blah. So we fire all these email off to our subordinates or people that feel obligated to then look at the email and respond. It's so bad. We need to get in the habit of just wait till the morning to press send.

And you know what? Chances are it's going to be resolved by morning anyway, you know, or you're going to have a better idea. How about how to resolve it in the morning? When I think about something at night like that, I'll either write it down or if I'm really if I'm already on my computer or I have my phone out, what I'll do is draft an email and not send it until the morning because you're like you said, it may just be resolved by the time you get to work.

And and they're not the ones being stressed about you sending them an email anymore. So I find that that works well for both me and the person that would be receiving the email. So you're you're not as clear headed at 11 p.m. You know, I get snarky. I'm like an email, of course, you know, is six times more snarky than how you even intended it.

Right. So the person receiving it's like, man, what's going on? Anyway, yeah, my best advice is to put a pause just as you're doing. I love it. Yes.

So let's talk about maybe movement. I think that I've seen a couple posts on Twitter about yoga from you. So can we talk a little bit about that? Oh, sure, sure. Well, movement is so important and it's so foundational.

And, you know, this whole mind body thing, it's connected. It's the same. Your mind is part of your body and moving is just going for walks. Right now, I'm taking this call standing. Even standing is great.

But I think moving in general, just, you know, in general is a really good thing and increases productivity and a lot of creative ideas come when you are moving. I think yoga is a very interesting practice in general because I think it started really to be a good stretch out before monks meditated for long periods of time. And so it's a good if you're going to be sitting for long periods of time at your office, yoga is a great way to kind of get all those stretches out.

You know, your insides and your outsides all kind of refreshed for the day. There are lots of fun new yoga, yoga glow is one of my favorite current apps or websites where you can go and you can do like a 10 minute, five minutes, 55 minute class, whatever you have the time for whenever during the day and pick your favorite instructor and pick some part of your body that you want to work on. And that's a really great way to integrate it. There's actually a gal in our office who decided to become a yoga instructor.

And so now she's teaching us in our office, which is pretty great. And you'll find a lot of yogis kind of hiding in your midst. And it's great to take advantage of them in the workplace if you can. We're just using one of our conference rooms and it's fantastic. We've got a few mats and some blocks and we're good to go.

But it's it is a really good way to just kind of move those parts that weren't moving, increase the blood flow and reduce other kinds of risks. People, people claim that they they get themselves hurt in yoga sometimes because it's kind of a competitive like, oh, the person next to me is on their head. I should be on my head. You know, it's important with yoga to really just kind of stay where you are and not try and do more than you need to stay in your lane.

Absolutely. But it's, you know, it's being mindful of your body, all that good stuff. And I will do all kinds of yoga stretches at my desk, sometimes just in between meetings, like, oh, I'm doing really stuff. So I'll just do do a few moves and stretches. And that's really easy and takes up no room.

And I look a little weird, but we're starting to be a little more accepting of doing yoga at work with our with our colleagues. So that makes it OK. But I think, yeah, other other ways, you know, it's just it's movement every 30 to 45 minutes if you can swing it. And what I mean is just standing up as a movement. Walking is great to do at least every hour, an hour and a half.

Go get a coffee, go to the bathroom, walk around the block, whatever it is that you can do to remind yourself, you know, put a little prompt on your computer. And then there are people, of course, who who move all the time for a living, which are in the, you know, I'm just thinking of office workers, but there's there's nurses who are on their feet all day and people in the medical profession. And that's a different story, right? They need to be thinking about sitting a little bit more because we weren't meant to do any one thing for all the time.

We really weren't meant to change it up. One thing, too, it's interesting if you look at early, early humans, humanoids, we spend a lot of time crouching, actually, which sounds a little bizarre, but hiding, hunting, you know, hiding from tigers, hunched down. And so that position just kind of squat on the floor and crouch is a really good stretch that kind of counteracts a lot of the things that that we don't do when we're sitting down on a chair. Could we, I mean, you mentioned the monks already.

Could we talk a little bit about mental health? So I mentioned this, we tried out on ourselves, EYP, we did the Harvard Health and Human Performance Index study and it was so, so interesting. One of the things we were trying to do is really connect all these data pieces and so many things about health are important, but it seems like it's talked about in facilities one way and real estate another way and HR another way and, you know, the health and wellness promotion people another way.

It's just an all different metrics. I'm like, let's put it all on one thing. So we did that and we started looking at our health in lots of different ways and our productivity and one of the things we found was mental health for us. Absenteeism and presenteeism due to anxiety or stress or depression was two to three times as impactful to our productivity than physical issues. We just spent a lot of time talking about the physical stuff and how bad that is, but the mental is much worse.

And I don't think we're alone. I think I've heard from a lot of people that this is a similar finding for them and the impact is pretty significant. We found in the millions of dollars per year, it was mostly mental health that was our problem. And so how do we manage that? Right.

So yes, there are all kinds of wonderful new ways that we're learning from neurologists everywhere about our brain and how to manage it. And there's so much research that was brought initially to bear by folks like John Kabat-Zinn and Sharon Salzberg and people who went to the Far East to talk to meditation centers and to really understand how people were managing their mind in a way that allowed them to be more clear thinking with all the mess that's normally in our head. Right. How do we really focus our thoughts?

And so a lot of initially a lot of that mindfulness was brought to the United States by John Kabat-Zinn anyway to deal with chronic mental health. He was a doctor at Mass General and he was really concerned that we keep medicating ourselves to deal with pain, but there's got to be another way. So he came up with an eight week mindfulness course. I think it's eight weeks. It's about 20 minutes a day and you go to classes once a week and then you do these 20 minute exercises.

My husband actually just did it. It exists in hospitals everywhere now, which is kind of cool. And they found they've been studying people who do this, particularly those who've never meditated before and those who have through this mindfulness based meditation stress reduction course. And they found that all kinds of amazing things. Number one, brains of people before they meditated and after meditated.

So after they found that the amygdala in your brain, the part that is the fight or flight freeze, it stresses out, you know, at a moment's notice kind of thing, it actually had shrank significantly in the brain and the hippocampus or the executive function, compassionate areas of the brain had actually increased. So people would actually, by working out those muscles, people would actually, you could physically see that stress was being reduced because of the stressor in the brain getting smaller and vice versa. And then so what's really great, I think about that particular course, my husband liked it, but when I forced him to go.

But lots of other people have benefited too. And what's great is it's so consistently taught that you can use it in a scientific study. And that's what John Gabusin was very concerned about. He's like, I want to prove this. I want to see this play out.

So he's done that. Aetna Insurance has done a ton of work on mindfulness and they have a chief mindfulness officer now, which I just interviewed on my blog if you're interested. It's so interesting, this guy's job. But yeah, they are seeing so much value at Aetna for mindfulness that they, with their employees, that they're now very serious about offering it to the hundreds of thousands of people who have Aetna insurance, like those insurance holders. And you know, when insurance companies do stuff, they're very thoughtful.

They don't spend money willy-nilly. And these guys have done enough scientific research to feel comfortable that it's worth something. So it's exciting, I think, to see that it's kind of the new thing, right? Get inside our heads and really understand them. Neuroscience is totally hot.

And it's great because we do, that is kind of the big frontier that we have yet to discover so much more about. But what we know now is these basic practices. And I use things like, I'll use apps like Budify. I love Budify, it's so cute. It's basically five, ten minute exercises and you can click on there and it's like, I'm walking, I'm stressed out, I'm waking up, I'm going to sleep, or whatever, you can pick it.

And then this little British voice will like talk you down. It's so sweet. With some calming music in the background. Yeah, exactly. You're feeling fine.

But sometimes, or waiting in line, there's a good one, you're waiting in line. Boy, I hate that. Anyway, any opportunity to have a little coach in your head. And so there's lots of others. There's one called Calm, there's one called, oh, what's that one with the Australian monk?

I'm forgetting it now. But it'll come to me. But there's several out there in the marketplace now that are really great. And so it's really possible for anybody to just throw on a set of earbuds and try it. And I do think it's really, really helping so many people.

Not just the old chronic pain, right, but this chronic stress that is causing us all kinds of issues. And it's not just issues of productivity, it's really issues of happiness and issues of feeling excited about coming to work and all those things. When you let the little stuff get to you, it can be exhausting. And so this is a way to mitigate that. I think what really speaks volumes is, is Etna's research and the fact that they're going to roll that out to their insurance holders.

So huge. I'll probably put a couple of those yoga, or rather mindfulness meditation apps, those links in the show notes, I've used a couple myself and they've really helped just simply breathing, taking the time to take long breaths, 10 deep breaths, and just tell yourself you're calming down, you can create your own saying that you say to calm yourself down. It's just all about knowing the steps to take and taking them when you have any little bit of anxiety or stress. And it's learning about it, it's being aware of that.

A lot of people will use prayer and it's very similar. It's something to think about when you are just trying to address your overall health. So to kind of move on to the design side of things, because you work at an architecture firm, and that's ultimately what your focus has been in. Could you talk to us a little bit about the design of workplace and the behaviors that relate to some of the design elements? An easy example is the sit to stand desk, right?

Which I highly recommend in whatever form you might be interested in acquiring that particular piece of furniture. But it is really great to stand. A lot of folks buy them and then don't use them, I've noticed. And they're like, oh, I just don't feel like I have permission to stand up. It's kind of weird.

So you do have to kind of back to you mentioned behavior, I think you do have to kind of encourage people to go ahead, stand up, it's good, or we're gonna have our stand up minute or whatever. But encourage people to actually use that. But it is really super great. And that also just by standing, you're naturally moving more. And which is which is good all around.

Other things, biophilia is all the rage, which is our preference to be in and among nature as humans. And there's a lot of study, a lot of really interesting research around biophilia. It's not just real nature, like having plants in the office or having a green wall, but could be fake nature, it could be things that are biophilic, similar analogs to nature, that kind of looks like a leaf pattern, or that kind of looks like a tree. Like if you've ever been to a national airport, the big columns or big yellow columns kind of look like trees, and those are all biophilic.

And so, you know, our earth is pretty wonderful and restorative. And there's been lots of interesting studies in Korea and Japan looking at forest bathing. So if you've ever been to Seoul, it's like one big slab of concrete. And so they have this whole industry now of people who will pick up people in buses, take them out to the forest and have them turn off their devices and walk for an hour in the forest. And they're seeing incredible changes in people's blood pressure, variable heart rate, all kinds of other metabolic factors.

And it's changing, you know, their stress levels dramatically. So they're like, oh, we should be bringing some of that green back to the office or back to everywhere. We seem to be destroying our parks left and right, and we're not maintaining them like we should and not celebrating them like we should. Central Park, without Central Park, New York would just be horrible. I think everyone who lives there would agree.

We need these things, and so finding ways to bring it indoors is a wonderful strategy. What else? What else? So many things. So there's, we didn't talk about nutrition, but there is a lot of focus now on something called choice architecture.

And what that means is basically putting, making it easy for people to make good choices. So when you go to the grocery store and you go to the checkout lane, you can either have a bunch of candy that you're staring at while you're waiting in line, or you can have some healthy food. And if you have healthy food, people are significantly more likely to pick up the healthy food than the candy. So a lot of companies are looking at their cafeteria or their break room and other things like that and saying, well, you know, we're not, we don't want to get rid of potato chips.

Sometimes you just really want some, but let's put it in a cupboard and let's put fruit out, or let's put healthy choices first. And the numbers are ridiculous how quickly people take them or will pick up on those. There's a guy, Brian Wansink out of Cornell, who is written a lot about it. And it's actually, if you're interested in this kind of thing, he's got all kinds of great ideas. Like one is when you buy plates, buy a plate that's eight to 10 inches diameter for your meals, too small and you feel kind of gypped, like you know, six inches, I just didn't get enough food on this plate.

If it's too big, you'll fill it up with pasta, right? And you'll feel kind of like, I got to fill it up. It's not my meal. So there are these mind games that you can play on yourself that are really, really helpful in the office too, or in your workplace with again, choice and selection and careful, careful use of cutlery and, and, and plates and bowls and all that good stuff. But nutrition is, is so key for weight loss.

We always think we can, we can burn it off. I'll just run it off later. And it is so much harder to do, particularly as you get older. So nutrition is really, really important. And one of the things I learned at the Human Performance Institute was the importance of snacking and of eating meals that are reasonable size, but really not too big.

And then every two to four hours to have 100, 150 calories, nothing too big, tiny bar, you know, chia bar or something, or a little thing of yogurt, just something that will tide you over to your next meal. And at work, you know, we're just kind of getting our zone. We're doing our thing and all of a sudden you're like, God, I'm starving. And the only thing around is like the soda, you know, the vending machine, which has some pretty crappy selections, even the healthy ones, you know, it's all processed stuff in there.

So being, I think, you know, one of the lessons or things I always tell myself is a, is a good offense is the best defense. So having stuff in your desk or having stuff in your bag, in your backpack or purse or whatever, ready to go is really, you know, a handful of nuts, whatever the case may be, is the best defense to those hunger pains that will just take over, you know, and you're just going to make a bad choice if given only bad choice selections.

And not everybody has vending machines, not everybody has the cafeteria even. So we gotta, we gotta be a little proactive about, about food, just like everything else. I really like the, the tie that you made between nutrition. I know that there are many aspects of the human engine that need to, to be maintained. And, and I know we didn't get through all of them.

Obviously, I'll put the link to Healthy Workplace, the book so all of you can see them and have access to all of them. But I like the tie that you made, particularly between design and nutrition. And it's really like that mindset shifts that that needs to take place around the design perspective. When you're talking with different owners, right, when they're wanting to build out their spaces, and they do have cafeterias, it's what kind of company do you want to be? It's asking those type of questions.

Alright, so if your food services vendor that you're hiring or, you know, how are they laying out the food? How can we make sure that we have simply in order to put out your vegetables and fruits right there before the cash register, you got to put something like a cold fridge or something that can hold those things right before the register. Those kind of having those mindset concerns when you're talking through design with, with your clients. So I really like that you kind of highlighted it.

It's a good correlation. I really like that. Well, and, and a couple new tools have come out kind of right as the book was coming out. And since the well building standard is coming out, which is fantastic, lots of great strategies in there. And kind of some of the emerging research that they're finding and research that's been around a while that really proves out some of the points and certifications that they're optimizations, as they call them, that you can pursue.

And there's another tool that is pretty recent, Fitwell, which is being administered by the Center for Active Design in New York, but it's actually developed by the CDC. And it is another tool a little bit. It's a little bit more targeted, you know, the CDC really is a public health mission. So it's targeted for all the existing buildings out there that we have today. And I think the well tools a little better suited to new buildings, because there's just so much more you can do with a new building, right.

But if you have an existing portfolio or mixed portfolio, you might want to consider Fitwell as an option too, because they are really looking at things that things that work things that are very affordable, but work with, again, what you have already with some modifications over time, you can, you can see some interesting results. And I like with both these tools, but I think particularly the fit well tool, just because I know it a little bit better, there is massive amounts of research behind every strategy that is being proposed.

It's not, it's not like, oh, this is a new fangled thing that's been untested. They were very, very clear about what works and what doesn't. And in fact, more points are awarded to strategies that have higher health outcomes. An interesting, so it was, you know, a funny little trivia. One of the things that points that has the most credits for whatever reason is the lactation room.

So if you provide a lactation room for your employees, it has been shown, I guess, to have better, better health outcomes for lots of good reasons for employees. So it is, folks can use that for lactation and or napping even better. But, but it is good to to have those things. And, you know, with some thought and rejiggering of space, usually it's not too hard to find a way to make them work. And again, things and these are plaques so you can put in your building.

It's wonderful marketing opportunities for your employees or recruits, all good stuff. I love those examples and then I'll put those resources in the show notes as well. So the main topic that I wanted to get to talk with you about is the business case of our healthy workplace. Just because, you know, the targeted audience is owners, property owners who are wanting to make decisions about ultimately their design and construction. They want to understand why is it worth it.

And I think we talked about a number of things already. But if we could just kind of hone in on some of the key topics about why this makes, you know, great business sense to go this direction. Sure. So there are all kinds of studies that have been out for a few years and some that are emerging every day that talk about why healthy buildings are better business. The absorption rate is higher.

The rental rates you're able to get in healthier buildings is higher. It just seems to be a better product on the market. The perception is that way. And I happen to think the reality is the same. But people are really behind it.

And it's interesting. If you look at sustainability, which is another really important thing to consider, but if you just look at the interest Google sustainability or Google health and wellness on the web, you will see a return about 100 times for health and wellness than you will for sustainability. I mean, people care about the planet, but they care a lot more about themselves and their health and well-being. And when it's themselves and their families and or their colleagues or whatever, there is a value placed on a healthy building.

So that, I think, is pretty exciting to see. I think there's also all kinds of just, you know, from the businesses who are adopting these healthy practices, there are several ways that companies measure health and well-being. And one is through the C. Everett Coop Award, their awards and things like that that you can go after. There's a corporate health achievement award.

And interesting, a bunch of researchers have gotten together and said, let's just compare all these companies that won all these great awards to the S&P 500 over the last 10 years. How are they performing? Like, are they really rocking it or not? And they have seen threefold return. I mean, honestly, if you're interested in a stock portfolio, look at who wins the CHA award.

Actually, one of the researchers, I think, is doing that. He's like, man, this is so good. This is like amazing intel. So he's created his own little stock portfolio or investment fund or whatever. But it is pretty cool.

So it makes sense, right? Companies that care about their people are seeing returns. And so when you're selling as a building owner, when you're selling people on this, I think there's also some great benefit that you can share with those people potentially running from you. And I'm happy to provide those research reports to you directly. They're pretty Googleable.

If you look up Ron Getzel, G-O-E-T-Z-E-L, and Ray Fabius, those guys have done a lot of research around it. And they're happy to take your call, and you can punch holes in their data. But it's pretty pretty amazing. There's also research done by Catherine Baker at Harvard I was really impressed with. It was a huge lit review looking at the return on investment for health programs and companies.

And she saw huge amounts of returns. But again, it kind of feeds back to companies that care in health and well-being, whether it's through their building, whether it's through their business, hopefully both, that they really are seeing returns in the marketplace. So and benefits to their bottom line. So I think those are there are many more that come out every day. And I try and track them like a crazy person because I also you know, I'm part skeptic.

You know, you think about it, like the way that we live now is so much more cushier than ever before. Like, I mean, come on, we were hunting and gathering. We're like hand to mouth for most of our time on this planet. And now we're like living in these cushy buildings, and we have food in supermarkets, so we can just go grab and it's just you think what you know, times have never been better. Why are we complaining?

But the truth is that we just don't have it right. We don't have it calibrated right. And we have to despite our instincts to grab those processed foods, we're going to have to counteract that and find ways around it to kind of nudge our behavior to be more healthy in order to to really behave well despite despite what we may want to do. We you know, we need something a little different as humans. And so we've got to kind of strike this balance of having you know, good business practices and, and great buildings that will support health and well being and nudge behavior in a certain way.

And then we have to have people that of course want to do it themselves. I mean, nothing beats that. But I think I think we can help the building industry can definitely help and it is good business to do so. You made some incredible points there. And one of the things you specifically mentioned, and a couple of times throughout, is just your mindset and the culture.

We talk a lot about from a personal level, but from an organizational perspective, when when companies are wanting to set out goals from a health and wellness perspective for for the employees, what what would you recommend are some good ways to roll out some programs that encourage the type of behavior that enables employees to have that healthy work workplace mindset? Well, I think, you know, one of the one of the mistakes we run into is it's kind of a one size fits all strategy. I mean, every employee population is a little different and the work that they do is a little different.

Even, you know, within the same industry, people work a little differently in one company than they do in another, have different health considerations. So I think, you know, before getting in there and saying, this is what we're going to do is to to talk with people about what their concerns are and also share with them, you know, kind of not giving away confidentiality, but but sharing kind of, you know, what companies like us, you know, for example, are doing and running into. We benefited at EYP by taking this little assessment, right, with Harvard.

It helped us get some clarity around what the real issues were. And your health insurance company can can help you do that too. Sometimes people rely on that for information data, rolled up data about their about their organization. But if you can know a little bit, you know, be armed with a little bit of the specifics around your company, start with that and and then start to identify some areas that people are really passionate about, because I find when you start with a personal passion, it is so much easier to take the ball and run with it.

And top down initiatives are great, but bottom up, I think is equally good or even better. It's funny, I mean, a lot of organizations that really seem to be talking about about this stuff publicly, they're being led by people who've had some sort of health crisis, frankly, or something that's kind of sadly shocked them into needing to take it seriously. And they've had a friend who had a heart attack or they, you know, they themselves have have had some sort of chronic issue pop up and and they realize, you know what, it's due to stress and I want to do something about this, not just for me for my team to which is really important.

But I think they're not the only ones who are having these aha moments and or or have things that they're really passionate about that they want to share with others. So I think a top down bottom up strategy is really the best way to go. And culture changes very slowly. It's not something that changes overnight. I've heard it's as long as seven years to really change a culture.

So be patient. If you're a champion of health and well being and really pushing things up the hill. Keep in mind, it does take some time. But I think it it's nice to have data to there was a gal who was with a finance company who started a mindfulness practice, for example, in her, her organization. She's like, I really want to get my mindfulness certification.

And I, you know, am happy to lead a little course, you know, in our New York office over lunch, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it was. And she did it. And then people loved it so much that other offices want to participate. So they conference called them in from other offices, other conference rooms. Isn't that funny?

They're all like doing this. She's like leading this mindfulness course, relax and everyone loved it. But after a while, she's like, you know what, we should measure this to really give this leg. So she did she measured before and after and everyone was like, I have more energy, I'm less stressed and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is awesome.

You know, I have more to give to my work. And, and that was great fuel. So I think it's, you can't eat the elephant off all at once, you really do have to kind of pick some things that matter to your organization that are tie into the personal passion of your people. And then measure it, make sure it's really working and it's having the effect that you want and then build from there. Wonderful advice.

Thank you for sharing that. Well, I would say overall, you've given us a lot of resources throughout this interview. Do you have any additional ones that you feel like just can't be left out and you want the listeners to know? Well, I would just say, you know, I try and when I do find things, I try and put them on leestringer.com and share with the planet as soon as humanly possible. I try and vet.

I mean, there's a lot of questionable data out there. But when something's really useful and really helpful and like, oh, here's a piece of furniture that looks like, you know, it's really getting great reviews and seems to work really well. I'll put it up and I'm happy to share that at any, I feel it's my gift to the planet. So I'm big, big on that and I'm happy to put you on my mailing list. You can just sign up really easily and I'll shoot it to you.

But yeah, that's where I put everything, you know, as I find good information or great tools. There's this great reporter I found recently with Forbes who's doing some amazing writing about health and wellness issues. And I've been trying to push some of his work. So anyway, I think it's, it can come from any place or lots of places, I should say. Really great research happening in Sweden and California out of Boston, lots of places.

Actually, Hopkins is doing great research. So anyway, there are a lot of great places where where this stuff is coming. And I try and funnel it when it's related to work and the physical workplace, I try and put it put it there. No, that's good. And we'll absolutely put Lee Stringer.com in the show notes so that you guys can't miss it.

Also check out healthy workplace and the green workplace. Another book that you've written that we didn't discuss very much here, but we'll also put the link for that in the show notes. Any particular ways that you'd recommend for people to reach out and contact you? I know you have a Twitter, I mentioned that before. I'm on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and you get to me.

Contact info on Lee Stringer.com any any way you like. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for doing this interview with me Lee. It's been a pleasure. Oh, mine too.

Thanks so much. I hope you enjoyed this interview with Lee. I know I learned a lot and I hope you did too. So let me know if you did. You can find me on Twitter at Brittany BRITTANIECT on Twitter and you can find me on LinkedIn.

Or you can just email me brittaniect.com. I want to know how this podcast has helped you. Even if you haven't implemented it yet. If you just want to learn more, still email me. Again, that's brittaniect.com.

In the next couple weeks, I will be doing a series about blockchain in construction. I will talk about what it is, how it can be used and talk with people about how it's already being used and the possibilities for increased trust and transparency when using blockchain. Pretty excited about it. And I think it will open the door to some amazing possibilities. With that, don't forget to subscribe at Constructor.

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