This article is based on the Allwork.Space Future of Work Podcast episode “Rethinking Workplace Wellness for Modern Teams with Wesley Edmonds, Melissa Doman & Angela R. Howard.” Click here to watch or listen to the full episode.
The workplace has spent years asking employees to come in. A better question may be what gives them a reason to.
That question came up in a recent episode of The Future of Work® Podcast featuring three workplace experts: Wesley Edmonds, director of workplace at OFS; organizational psychologist and workplace mental health expert Melissa Doman; and organizational culture strategist Angela R. Howard.
Their conversation covered office design, mental health and workplace culture, but each pointed to the same underlying issue: organizations have to understand employees as people with lives, needs and responsibilities that extend beyond their jobs.
The office has to earn the commute
For Wesley Edmonds, workplace design starts with a simple question: What does an employee actually need to accomplish when they come in?
Edmonds, who has a background in interior design and commercial workplace consulting, argued that an office needs to support different types of work throughout the day.
An employee might need a small room for a private meeting one day and a larger space to gather with their team the next. They may also want opportunities to connect with colleagues and experience the culture of the organization.
If those options aren’t available, the trip to the office becomes harder to justify.
Edmonds said her own thinking about workplace attendance changed after having a newborn and a three-year-old at home during COVID-19. The experience made her reconsider the assumption that employees would naturally want to come into the office simply because they enjoyed their colleagues or company culture.
Employees have children, errands, aging parents and countless other responsibilities competing for their time. An appealing office can matter, but it is only one part of the equation. That puts more pressure on workplace designers and leaders to make the time employees spend in the office worthwhile.
For Edmonds, that means human-centered design that gives people the right spaces for the work they are actually there to do.
Addressing mental health needs more than good intentions
The same principle applies to workplace conversations about mental health.
Melissa Doman, an organizational psychologist, former mental health therapist and founder of The Workplace Mental Health Method, argued that companies need to approach mental health as a practical workplace issue rather than simply promoting wellness as a general value.
Mental health affects productivity, morale, collaboration, communication and innovation, she explained. Since organizations are staffed by people, maintaining employees’ mental health has direct implications for how those organizations function.
But Doman also cautioned leaders against encouraging employees to open up without first considering whether the workplace can handle those conversations appropriately.
Before discussing mental health, she said leaders should look honestly at their environment. Have employees previously been supported when they discussed emotional health? Have people faced negative consequences for doing so?
Those questions can tell employees whether the workplace is actually prepared for these conversations.
Employees also need to understand their rights and consider why they are sharing personal information, what details are necessary and what they want to happen as a result.
Doman’s point is particularly relevant as companies increasingly talk about creating psychologically healthy workplaces. Encouraging openness without giving employees or managers practical guidance can leave both sides unsure about what comes next.
The same workplace arguments keep coming back
Angela R. Howard takes the issue even further by questioning how much of today’s workplace debate is actually new.
Howard, founder of Call for Culture and an organizational culture strategist, pointed to historical examples showing that complaints about younger generations’ attitudes toward work have been around for centuries.
She referenced newspaper clippings dating back to the 1800s complaining that young people were lazy and didn’t want to work. The details change, but many of the underlying demands remain familiar: fair pay, dignity, respect and better treatment at work.
Howard argues that organizations can waste time when every generation is treated as though it has created an entirely new workplace problem. Instead, leaders can look at the underlying needs that have persisted across generations.
One difference she sees today is that some younger workers are questioning how much of their identity should be tied to employment. Howard said she sees Gen Z as wanting work to have less meaning in their lives, with greater value placed on social systems and parts of life outside employment.
That raises a larger question for employers: Why has work been expected to provide so much of a person’s identity and sense of purpose in the first place?
Start with the person, then build the workplace
Taken together, the three conversations offer a useful way to think about the future of work.
Employees’ expectations aren’t formed in isolation. Their decisions about where and how they work are influenced by family responsibilities, physical environments, mental health, workplace relationships and the role work plays in their lives.
For organizations, that means workplace strategy reaches beyond office attendance policies or employee perks.
An office needs to give people useful reasons to be there. Mental health initiatives need practical guidance behind them. And workplace culture needs to account for the basic expectations employees have carried across generations.
The common thread is straightforward: before asking what employees should do for the organization, leaders need to understand what employees actually need from work.
