Steelcase Middle East WHILE the holy month of Ramadan marks a special time of self-discipline and personal and religious reflection for Muslims around the world, many business owners are faced with a unique set of challenges which can interrupt the workflow and threaten levels of economic output. Without food and water to fuel employees throughout the day, reduced productivity, a loss of creativity and the inability to remain focused plague an already reduced number of working hours. While the economies of wellbeing are important all year round, extra attention needs to be paid to facilitating wellness in the workplace during Ramadan. Flexibility, understanding a fasting employee's experience and accommodating their particular needs are critical in supporting workplace wellbeing and ensuring people perform to the best of their abilities during this trying period. Here are a few tips to make your workplace fasting-friendly this Ramadan: Allow movement: Although fasting employees will experience higher levels of lethargy than usual, maintaining movement can help reduce pressure on the spine, send oxygen to muscles, and increase blood flow to the brain. Movement is healthy and a desk chair should support an employee's ergonomic needs as they move. Create an ecosystem of spaces: Remaining focused and creative is one of the key challenges employees face during Ramadan. If a workplace can provide a series of interconnected spaces which support both individual focused and collaborative work, then employees will feel empowered to choose how and where they want to work, depending on their task needs and engagement levels. Including optional places designed as retreats away from noise distractions and frequent interruptions, as well as spaces to optimize collaborative sessions will help unleash an employee's full capabilities. Take cues from nature: While food and water remain essential elements in sustaining energy levels, they are not exclusive. There are a variety of elements which we can take from nature and our surroundings to help ensure employee wellbeing and productivity in the workplace. Avoid uniformity: bring variety to the workplace. Add more colors, seek variation, incorporate naturally complex materials, shapes, forms, patterns and textures. This will help to stimulate creative thinking and frame the mind for contemplation. Put nature to work: Bringing nature into the workplace is not only a beautiful design element, but has been shown to reduce stress, minimize illness and enhance employee wellbeing. Whether your workplace has green spaces inside or access to green spaces outside, the impact is overwhelmingly positive. Use daylight: If possible, flood the workplace with daylight. Use glass walls or a translucent material for space dividers, amplifying all available natural light. If natural light is not an option, a well-lit general office space with artificial lighting will still help with productivity. Consider providing task lights for each individual workspace, whether traditional desking spaces or lounge areas. Offering privacy: According to Steelcase research, engaged employees maintain a degree of control over where and how they work, including access to privacy when needed. They are empowered, both by organizational decisions and the spaces made available to them within their workplace, to make choices about where and how they work. This includes managing their need for privacy in order to concentrate easily and work with teams without disruptions, during Ramadan. While the concept of employee wellbeing has experienced a resurgence in many workplaces in recent times, the holy month offers the perfect opportunity for remaining employers to bring it to the top of company consciousness, refocusing and recharging efforts for the rest of the year. It is important to ensure a productive work environment which enforces wellbeing and encourages employee engagement.
