RDG in the Media: Wellness in the Home Workplace
RDG's Collin Barnes, IIDA, LEED AP discusses how to transfer well-being best practices from the office office to your home office.
For years, designers have been studying and applying best practices for something called the distributed work model, an organizational approach in which a team of co-workers is dispersed throughout an open office plan rather than being assigned to one desk. This approach allows individuals to select the space that best meets their needs for any given task throughout the day.
Now, amid the COVID-19 virus pandemic, many in the U.S. are working in a landscape that has taken the distributed work model and expanded it to a local, regional and even national scale. Instead of opting to sit in the office café to tackle emails, we’re now sitting in our own kitchens, dining rooms and home offices.
As we observe physical distancing, we’re all having to adapt to our new normal of the home office. No one knows with certainty how long it will be until we can venture back to our professionally designed offices; in the interim, however, we can look at ways to create workspaces that support our cognitive, emotional and physical well-being.