Note from the Editor: May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States. This year, the importance of mental health and well-being is especially top of mind as employers and property teams prepare to welcome occupants back to the office and consider new ways to accommodate a post-isolation workforce. The below excerpt was originally published in the latest addition to the BOMA Deep Dive series, Tenant Culture and the Psychology of a Return. Visit www.boma.org/deepdives to read the full Deep Dive and to learn more about how mental health considerations will inform the modern workplace now and into the future.
COVID-19 is breaking up a longstanding relationship. Employee well-being and engagement have always been closely connected. That is, until 2020. That was when the two went their separate ways, as Gallup research reveals. Counterintuitively, the firm reports that employee engagement actually rose through the depths of the pandemic, closing the year one point higher in the firm’s benchmarking than in 2019. They attribute this to “the efforts, enthusiasm and commitment of many employees [holding] steadfast through COVID-19, despite experiencing a new kind of stress and worry each day.”
Meanwhile, its former partner, well-being, suffered. Stress, worry and isolation began contributing to a decline in a sense of well-being early in the year. Gallup estimates that 40 to 60 percent of the workforce was remote last year. That’s a lot of stress to deal with, and it forces employers to deal with the dual issues of their workers’ current stress levels while pondering the future of the workplace going forward.
To help clear up that conundrum, Gallup offers five steps to enhanced well-being that are crucial for both employers and the property professionals supporting them. All of the steps, you will note, also contribute to a strong corporate culture: