All employers want their staff to function well and take as few sick days as possible. But how can they have any control over that? The real estate company Colliers International believes there is a lot employers can do to enhance wellness in the workplace. Indeed, according to Keith Perske, Executive Managing Director of Workplace Strategy and Innovation for the Colliers Corporate Solutions Team, workplaces should be perceived as “holistic systems, not just panel heights and office sizes. By thinking this way, we don’t just focus on cost savings and space reduction, but on creating spaces that actually serve their purpose as tools for productivity and touchstones for culture. For this reason, we include a wellness component in all our workplace engagements.”

The question still remains though, how exactly does the real estate company fit into this? And what – in practical terms – is it doing? Perske explained: “We partner with clients to build workplaces that help people and create competitive advantages for companies. We think about workplaces as holistic systems, not just panel heights and office sizes. By thinking this way, we don’t just focus on cost savings and space reduction, but on creating spaces that actually serve their purpose as tools for productivity and touchstones for culture. For this reason, we include a wellness component in all our workplace engagements.”

There are so many things – way beyond a fitness room – a company can do to enhance workplace wellness. Offer employees healthy food choices, provide lower fat milk for coffee, make sure there is a lot of natural sunlight, boost authentic interactions. What does this do? Research has found that people just work better and are motivated to push themselves more when they are relaxed. For example, the Principal Financial Well-Being Index survey found that 40% of employees say they want to work harder and perform better and 26% miss fewer days of work by participating in wellness programs.

And when employees are relaxed, they are less likely to hate coming to work, more likely to stay healthy and thus will take sick days off less frequently.

So the more wellness in the workplace, the better productivity for the company. It just makes “cents” to care for one’s employees.