Here's What Office Workers Need to Get Healthier

their employees to have. Today we're talking about all the ways that companies try to trick their employees into getting healthier, and whether they should be doing that at all. This is game plan. Hi, I'm francesco Leavie and I'm Rebeca Greenfield, and today we are talking about workplace wellness and what

that even means. A few weeks ago, you might remember we had an episode where we talked about how much sitting people are doing in the modern office and what people are doing to get around that, like encouraging the use of standing desks. More. This week, we're going to keep talking about your health at the office, but we're talking about bigger things companies are doing to try and make you healthier and more fit. Let's start with why

companies care so much about making you healthier. UM health insurance. That's that's pretty much it. A sick employees cost companies a ton of money. They are expensive to ensure. If you're a really big employer and you pay for your own health insurance, then you're paying out a pocket when somebody gets sick. And people who get sick don't shoft to work and they're not productive. So companies are pouring a lot of money into these so called wellness programs.

I don't love that phrase, but that's what it is. It sounds like it really means anything. It sounds very corporate jargon. But one statistic that's not super current, but I think from fifteen found that companies are putting almost seven per impull eat into these wellness programs and that was a record high because it's so expensive when people get sick. That's a lot of money. And as you say, wellness isn't a word that sounds like it really means much.

So what do those numbers translate into, Like what are companies actually spending money on? Wellness is a giant umbrella term that can mean so many different things. And it can be a smoking sensation programs that you get money back if you don't smoke on your health insurance or for example, I participated in these workout programs happening in the office. So some offices will have like boot camp in the middle of the day at work. That sounds super fun. What was that like? It was mortifying. It

was mortifying. I was paired up with um, like a high up person at a company, and he was doing like leg lifts with me, and we're all sweating and they're not even my coworkers. And I really didn't like it, but the employees did like it because it's hard to work out and you want to work out in the middle of the day, and it's it's a free service that your company is offering. And then there's you were talking about step challenges, which companies are trying to gamify

and get people to participate in. Yeah. I worked at a company once where there was this step challenge. I think different teams were pitted against each other. Everybody was given a pedometer. My team had I think more competitive spirit than we actually had motivation to exercise. So at a certain point I do remember us all like sitting at our desks shaking our pedometers when we realized that that would increase the stepp count. Um, I hope this

doesn't get that team's trophy taken away. I've changed some names and identifying details in that story, so you'll never know what I'm doing. That is, Yeah, not at all, but that's the opposite of what the company wants to do. That gamification backfired. So that gets to an important point though, like do these programs work or employer workers around the country sitting at their desks and shaking their pardometers. So

I think there are two problems. First, there's a problem of companies don't know how to get the return on investment. They know that health their employees cost less money, but the research is pretty shaky about which programs work and how much the return on investment is. So I think the smoking sensiation programs work really well. The programs where they help people manage their disease, So if you have diabetes and you help your employees manage that, those work

really well. But health can mean so many different things, and it sounds like companies are trying to tackle it from all different angles. Yeah, and as we talked about in our standing desk episode something like being sedentary is a huge problem for companies, but they can't figure out how to get people to do it, which is the

other problem, and that people don't participate. They don't want to do these programs, as you and your old coworkers showed, you just wanted to win whatever the prize was, so you worked around it. You would rather not walk. So what do companies do, Like, how do you get people involved? How do you get them to participate? These sticks? They threatened people, that's what works. There was the study that I read about that it had different people in a

step challenge. You either got money when you your goal, or money was taken away from you when you didn't get your goal. The people who had money taken away from them outperformed everyone else by far. Because people, when they feel threatened, they want to perform. So it works, But it sounds like kind of a nasty environment to work. Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly do you want to treat your employees like this just to keep your health insurance costs down? I mean the answer to that is yes, that some

companies do that. Okay, So what if you didn't have to do any of that? What if you didn't have to get employeed by, and you didn't have to cajole people into doing step challenges, and you didn't have to threaten them, you could just sort of seduce them into being healthier without them even realized that they were being manipulated.

Our guest, Joanna Frank, runs the Center for Active Design, which has a mission to integrate fitness and health into all kinds of public spaces, including offices and full disclosure. Is partially funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Welcome Joanna, Thank you. So why don't you just start by explaining what active design is. So there's actually many things about the design of your office space that impacts your health. UM, whether it's the location of the stair, the location of the

office itself, UM. Many of these different decisions when you're choosing where an office is located and so on, UM actually impact the amount of physical activity that you're receiving every day, as well as mental health, social attractions on. Can you give us some specific examples of how you've changed an office layout to get some of those health outcomes. So it starts with sighting, So where you locate an office has a huge impact on the amount of physical

activity UM and social interactions someone that receives UM. So you can imagine if you're in the middle of the city like this office, then you're going to take the subway, You're going to walk down the street to get to the office. If you're located somewhere out in the suburbs, for instance, that you can only drive to the office, then you have no choice about driving, and so you don't get that kind of that little bit of activity that we all rely on every day. So it starts

with the sighting. Another example would be UM when you first walk into a building. If you see the stair when you first walk in, even if it's through a glass door, you're much more likely to take the stairs then if it's behind a steel door and you have no idea where it is, obviously UM. But but again it's it's these incremental amounts of physical activity and interaction

to make a really profound impact on people's health. So if you had a company come to you and say, we're looking to make our office healthier so our workers are healthier, move us from the suburbs to the city. So we actually run a certification program fitwell, which allows companies to actually assess how health promoting a building is prior to either moving into that building or if you're making a decision about which building to lease, et cetera.

So people are absolutely using this information to make a difference about, you know, where the workers are actually going to be in the first place. And then they're using the same information when they're doing a fit out or if they're renovate eating the space. UM, they're using this information to actually inform the design what kind of things what a company have to do to meet the fit

well certification. So it starts off with the sighting, So what neighborhood you choose to locate in UM and there's a lot of kind of metrics around more health promoting community and neighborhood. And then it really just kind of goes as if you're walking through the space. So it starts off with the entrance of the building, how does that support interaction both with the community at large, but also how does it start to indicate that this is

an environment that promotes health? And then the stairs and then it moves on as if you're walking through the building, so shared spaces, workspaces, food access, you know what food is being provided, vending machines, even emergency procedures. So it really is kind of all aspects of the workplace that's affected. What kind of entrance as the healthiest looking and trans um Also, entrances have a couple of different roles there.

They're obviously that transition moment um, and so it's both connecting you back with the resources that are in the community. So say you're in a neighborhood that has a park two blocks away, then you can use the messaging and signage within the entrance to actually connect your employees with those resources. Or if there's a supermarket, or if the transit and so on, so you can really use the entrance to communicate what is available in the greater community.

And then of course it is the location where a stair would be, so you use it for the stair as well. Um, And there's also a great emphasis on universal accessibility, so really looking at how to provide equity for vulnerable populations and how design and operations of buildings can do that. You were talking about the sighting of an office. Where the office is located. Some officers may be forced to be in a suburban area. Are there things they can do around siting if they're if they're

not in an urban area, that are more active than others. Absolutely, the great thing about fit well is that it really is looking at existing buildings and the conditions that they are actually experiencing. UM. And so if you are in a suburban or rural neighborhood or location, then you have a different set of opportunities. So you probably have more space, and you probably have outdoor space, which of course you

wouldn't have if you're in an urban location. So then it's a case of doing UM, having walking trails, having garden spaces, having maybe a farmer's market if it's a campus. So there are many different things you can do. If you're in a suburban location, you'll also probably have more square foot within your space, and so you can have exercise rooms and quiet rooms, you know, where space is

probably tighter in an urban location. So there is absolutely a whole set of things you can do regardless of the actual location of your office. And that's kind of the point. The point is, whatever you are, whatever your office space looks like, there are many things that you can do to to promote health. What would you say as the simplest thing at office? Can do a lot of these things I'm hearing sound like kind of big overhauls. Sure,

I mean there's many things that have no cost. So there are a whole list of operational strategies and so that's as kind of practical as a pest management says integrated pest management plan. But it's also things like signage. Signage has a really big impact on people's behavior. And

obviously that's not difficult to do or expensive. So even if you can't move the stair just having signage that says the stair is over there in the corner will actually affect the number of people using the stairs or saying you know, we are in office. That promotes health for these reasons, that actually changes behavior. Our office is obsessed with signage. There are lots of a lot of arrows. Yeah, I was gonna ask something like you mentioned people seeing

this staircase when they first walk in. What are the health benefits of that? What have them? Is shown to be sure, so it increases the number of flights of stairs that you take a day, um and some of the research shows that just as six flights of stairs a day is enough to offset the average annual weight gain of an American UM it also decreases the risk of stroke. Um So, we know that the three greatest risk factors for chronic disease so diabetes, heart disease, etcetera,

are smoking, diet, and lack of physical activity. So if you can use your building, your workplace to actually mitigate the risk of those three aspects, you are obviously then reducing the risk of chronic disease, which is the largest kind of killer in this country. What what you may know not know though, however, is that social isolation is actually fast becoming an equivalent kind of risk factor, as

is physical inactivity and smoking. So the three are actually kind of neck and neck for for kin of having a risk factor. So with social isolation something that can be tackled in the workplace as well. Absolutely. Yeah. So interestingly, some of the evidence around social isolation again comes to that kind of sighting. So if you're if you're able to cite your office somewhere that is within a neighborhood that's walkable, just that kind of casual interaction. There's evidence

base around that. Mitigating social isolation also kind of decreasing car use, because car uses inherently kind of isolating. Um. So yeah, there's a lot of things you can do having shared spaces that encourage social interaction in a in a workplace. Um. So it's it's it's really interesting evidence and it's something that's really actually continuing to evolve over time. What about lighting? Have you done or reviewed much research

on how the type of light effects working conditions? Yes, so there are some strategies and fit well around light because there is a significant body of evidence. I think the strongest evidences around having access to natural light, so to be being able to see outside basically, um and knowing you know what time of dead is that that has the greatest evidence space around it. Do you think most buildings office buildings in America are abiding by these strategies or do we have a long way to go?

So if it is brand new, I mean we are in week five, so it's I mean active design has obviously been around for for a long time and actually started under the Bloomberg administration, um when the mug was the mayor of New York City. So it's been around for a while. But active design just looked at physical activity and now we've obviously expanded. Um So what I would say about fit weell is that there's a great deal of interest both from the people who own buildings,

so real estate developers and so on. UM. There's also a great deal of interest from employers about how they can use this evidence space to really inform future decisions around how they invest in employee health. I understand why employer's word care. Obviously it keeps their employees healthier and that's cheaper for them, and I guess that's a good social good. Why the real estate developers care, it's really

building on the success of the sustainability movement. So real estate developers already saw a market advantage to being seen to be an early adopter of sustainability practices UM. And so there's an opportunity now to be seen to be promoting health UM. And the evidence space is there, so

it's not speculative. This isn't an opinion about whether you can do so UM and so there's an opportunity to really differentiate their portfolios UM and then obviously encourage new tenants and tenants who are in their buildings that they will understand that they are actually in an environment that

is actually affecting productivity. So one of the things that we see and that the it and space supports is that if you have a healthier employee, those employees are more productive, So there's there's definitely a correlation between the two.

So your center develops best practices. And we're fortunate enough to work in an office that I think utilizes some of those but a lot of people will find familiar the descriptions of the office where like the microwave is never cleaned out, and those stairwells impossible to find, and there's no natural light for those of us that work in those types of offices, and I think everybody probably has at one point or another. Is there anything individuals can do to change their own space to make it

more conducive to fitness or movement or just being healthy. Sure, I mean absolutely, And I think what is really interesting about this movement is it is actually being driven by employee demand. So the reason that we are seeing so much interest from employers is because they know that their employees are looking at the environment that they work in as one of the deciding factors about who they going to work with in the first place, and then whether

they stay at that um in that job. So there is definitely an understanding from business that they can actually attract talent talent sorry, and also retain their talent and their employees if they provide an environment that is health promoting and if they are seen to be providing an environment that is health promoting. And what I would say is that, UM, whether system like fit Well or any of the stuff that we do, it's it's about incremental change.

So you don't have to suddenly look like this amazing office building we're in right now. UM, you just need to understand like where you are now and what it is you should be prioritizing, and then just start to do it. You know, every little thing that you do is actually going to have an impact on health. So even if it's only about putting signage up in the building and you do nothing else, that's at least the start,

and it starts to actually move the needle. So I think that that's the kind of the messages that everybody can do something UM. And the idea is that by democratizing this information and really putting it out there for everyone to see, what the evidence space is, what the strategies are, UM, you're really allowing for kind of an egalitarian approach to this is what we understand to be

health promoting. This is what we know works. Now, let's put it in the hands of the entire labor force and the entire workforce in order for everyone to be able to benefit from. Well, this has been really interesting. Thank you so much for joining us, Joanna. Thank you.

Everything Joanna is talking about sounds pretty great. Like I think it's it sort of goes without saying that most people would like to work in an office where there's some like flooding through the windows and walking paths that you can take breaks on and help the snacks and things like that, So I think it's hard to argue

that actively designed offices aren't good. But what I'm wondering is where it stops, because most companies are doing more than that, and they're doing it because it helps their bottom line. Yeah, because the more they know, the better return on their investment they can theoretically get. And some

of these programs are a bit too invasive for employees. UM. There is a bill going through Congress now that will allow employers to require their employees to go through genetic testing in order to get their health insurance UM, which does seem overly invasive. Do you want your employer to know you're predisposed to I don't know breast cancer or

Alzheimer's or anything that's that's sort of nutty. And I guess it's like, once we accept that it's our company's job or our company's right to get us healthier, how much information about ourselves are we willing to give over to them. I don't know the right answer. I'd like to work in a healthy fit office and generally be healthier, but I don't want my company to know everything about my health. I also want that discounted health insurance. Yeah, and I love free snacks, and this is a good

time for half packed as half fake takes. You can leave us a message with your half bag take or anything else at two on two six one seven zero one six. Another piece of exciting news you can also hear weekly from me and Becca if you subscribe to our awesome game Plan newsletter. Just go to Bloomberg dot com slash Newsletters and check game Plan. Before we get to our half big takes, this week's listener, half big Take comes from a Twitter user who goes by Kylie

Jenner on the platform, but is not actually Kylie Jenner. Nonetheless, she has a very interesting Half Big Take, which is going to be read by a volunteer actress also known as our producer, Liz. Security should not shame me for using the stairs. I know we're not supposed to, but it's healthy and I use the handrail, so let me be and stop your futile attempts to limit my cardio. I'm not using the elevators because they're always crowded and I deserve better. This is an eight story buildings, so

trust and believe that the stairs are manageable. Also by to my coworkers who think I used the stairs because I'm better. Okay, I want to be clear that that was a thread first of all on Twitter, and it's the first time. I believe this is right Becca. Is this the first time we were ever threaded at? I think so on Twitter. It's a it's a huge honor. Um. I have to say that I agree with us Half Big Take. We have aggressive security here and I do feel like they try to shame you into not using

the stairs. We have a we have a complex lobby system. You have to get there by elevators, and also like the stairs are not that easy to get to their behind scary looking red doors and in faired corners. You don't know where they lead, but you just want to be healthy, which this is so on brand. Yes, this is half they take and Kylie is right and we support her efforts to get tone caps. Thank you for

your happy take, Kylie. Becca. Why don't you tell me what your thought of the day is That probably shouldn't be spoken. This is controversial. I've floated it to some people. Um, with the end of winter, I would like to say that clementines are the perfect snack. They're winter fruit. That's

why I mentioned winter. They're the only good thing about winter in my opinion, and they're just a bite sized delight and it's like once you probably can't stop, but it doesn't matter because it's fruit, and they're so easy to peel. They're not messy. They come in their own individual little sizes. I guess the problem I've heard from people is that they're too small. But I like bite sized pieces of things that I can snack on forever and ever and ever. Is it so? I tend to

agree with you here. I don't think there's anything wrong with the clementine. You can drop a couple of them in your bag. I guess the skin is not quite hardy enough that you can just like drop it into your bag. You need to maybe put it in a protective drop in there and doesn't get pierced. The they're A thing I've heard about this being not a good take is that it's like you have to peel the whole thing and then you have a tiny fruit. But I like it. They're so easy to peels, no seeds.

It's like a little game perfect snack. Sorry, all of you haters out there, you don't get a voice on our show. You're wrong. Okay, fine if you disagree, calling in let me know, Francesca, what is your not fully formed idea that shouldn't really be an idea? Um, this is a pretty this is a pretty solid rule of them I've developed for myself. It may sound kind of extreme, but I have developed a zero tolerance policy around alcohol

and responding to work emails. So let me explain. Obviously, you shouldn't send any work emails if you are intoxicated. There's all kinds of things that could go wrong there. So like if you're out to drinks with friends and you're wasted and you get an email from your boss, that email should go unresponded to until the next day, but you might think that it's okay onto that email

if you've had one drink. My philosophy is you have to completely remove any doubt that once you've had one drink, you are no longer capable of evaluating whether you are or not too drunk to respond to that email. And if you're getting the email after hours and you feel compelled to respond to it, it's probably like a pretty important work email, So the situation might be a little heightened, like it's something somebody did wrong or you did wrong that has to get answered right away, and so that

throws another wrench into things. And it's just like really hard to gauge tone in emails and like strike the right tone. So if I've had even a sip of alcohol and I have like hankering to respond to a work email, I just remind myself of my rule because I don't feel drunk. So I'm like, I'm fine, but no, you have to have a rule. I think I need this rule. I do it. It always comes out weird. As we were discussing, Yeah, you get like you just

it's like you won't necessarily say anything stupid. It's not like you're drunk texting your boss, but it'll just sound kind of wrong, so don't do it. Zero tolerance alcohol, work, email, close your phone, have a few drinks, enjoy your night.

This has been half big Takes, half Baked Takes. Thank you for listening to game Plan and you can find me on Twitter at Francesca Today and I'm at RZ Greenfield and you can tweet us your half bake takes, or you can call into our hotline at two on two six seven zero one six six tell me all about why you hate Clementine or why you don't drink an email. If you like our show, please go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, rate us, subscribe

and review. Every single review really does make a difference, so if you like us, that's a great way to show it. This show is produced by Liz Smith and Magnus Hendrickson. The head of podcast is Alec McCabe and we will see you next week. Bye bye Aye. When you're saying my acting is bad, fine,