Building a kinder real estate as the workplace reopens

Here’s your round-up of EG’s recent wellbeing coverage. How will the mental health and wellbeing agenda shape the real estate industry’s journey as buildings reopen and workforces slowly start to come together once more? It’s a question EG’s Lucy Alderson explored from various angles this week. Firstly, from the perspective of how companies should be looking after staff and tenants returning to their buildings – and it is reassuring to hear that so many are prioritising wellbeing as they do so. At Legal & General, head of property operations Mark Tyson says the relationship between landlord and occupier has “never been more important” than during this return to the workplace – and he adds that wellbeing is at the heart of this. “While coronavirus has had a number of wide-reaching negative consequences, strengthening the working relationship between landlords and occupiers will be one positive outcome of the current crisis,” Tyson adds. Investors and tenants could ultimately increase their focus on wellbeing when weighing up whether to buy or move into a particular building. In this piece, Scarborough Group project and investment executive Adam Varley points out that the pandemic is likely to spur companies to consider health and wellbeing in building standards even more than they would have before, and that proeprties could become obsolete if the right monitoring and evaluation processes are not installed. “Without question, Covid-19 is going to make [mental health and wellbeing] more topical,” Varley adds. Don’t forget to check out the wellbeing special in this week’s edition of EG, where you can find a round-up of our interviews, podcasts and columns from May’s Mental Health Awareness Week. Those include some of the beautiful drawings of landmarks longed-for during lockdown by Ministry of Defence infrastructure director Sherin Aminossehe, as well as some inspiring words on how to be kinder to others and to ourselves from PwC’s Lee Wilkinson. These and more can be found on our Mental Health Hub. To leave the last word with Wilkinson: “My takeaway from the lockdown is that there are lots of positives in life. We should focus on maintaining these, not returning to what was normal before Covid-19. Above all, we can hopefully learn to accept and love ourselves a little more – we don’t realise it but we are taking daily steps towards a better us.”   To send feedback, e-mail tim.burke@egi.co.uk or tweet @_tim_burke or @estatesgazette