Haworth forum on workplace health and well-being at the Haworth DC showroom; Leigh Stringer – EYP, Workplace Research & Strategy, Author; Chris Gorthy – DPR, Strategic Preconstruction Services Leader and MindShift contributor; Rex Miller – Principal and Thought Leader for MindShift; Mike O’Neill – Lead Global Research, Workplace Strategy and Market Analytics for Haworth; Patrick Donnelly – Principal at BHDP. Image courtesy of Rex Miller.
As Rex Miller prepared for the release of his latest book, “The Healthy Workplace Nudge”, WDM spoke with him to get the inside scoop on the inspiration and motivation behind the story.
Where did the idea for this book come from?
The inspiration for this book grew from a previous project, “Change Your Space, Change Your Culture.” That book presented the CBRE headquarters project in LA. Needing a new building, they looked at different business models and visited offices around the world. Our story presented their excellent change management process.
More than that, however, they demonstrated full engagement – with their employees, their past, their present, and their future. Lew Horne, the President of CBRE’s Southern California and Hawaii Division, pulled the workforce into a new consideration of the future. It’s a compelling story on how design changed corporate culture. The story also revealed the difference between push solutions – the experts solving it – and pull solutions – when you galvanize people with vision, open their horizons, and go out and solve the problem together.
Soon after the book came out, we started getting a great response. And, much of it seemed to revolve around CBRE. Lew’s office kept ordering cases of the book over the next year. I finally asked him what was going on. He told me that because of the book, over 14,000 people had come to visit their space in the previous eighteen months. As we talked, he also mentioned that the wellness side of their renovation had been making huge improvements to morale, work habits, and even positively affecting employee home life.
I flew to Los Angeles; I had to see it for myself.
In my meeting with Lew, I saw another story, an even better one. CBRE was the very first corporate WELL certified building. That was in 2013. And, it was the first time that building science and medical science came together to create a measurably healthy environment – and provide a framework and guidelines for others to do the same. To me, that was the “aha” moment. I saw that was also the first time that a built environment became the major “character” in the story of wellness.
So, in the summer of 2015, I collected a group of 12 leaders including Paul Scialla and Phil Williams from Delos, Mabel Casey from Haworth, Andy Cohen from Gensler, two long-time lead architects for Google, Kate Lister, and a few others. After our tour of CBRE, we understood CBRE’s transformation and why it created such an overwhelming response. But, the tour also raised concerns that our industry might be jumping aboard the wellness train without really understanding what creates employee wellness.
In January 2016, we assembled a larger team of industry voices and experts in Chicago. We had to bring others into the conversation. By the end of that two-day gathering, I saw the energy, interest, and commitment were launching a new MindShift project around wellness.