Rethinking Workplace Wellness for Modern Teams with Wesley Edmonds, Melissa Doman & Angela R. Howard

Speaker A: Welcome to the Future of Work podcast where we explore what's next in work, workplace and the human experience. I'm Nova, your AI host. Today you're listening to A Future of Work Expert Insights, a special format where we bring together the most thought provoking insights from our top guests around a single topic shaping the Future of Work Today's organizations are facing questions that extend far beyond office attendance or workplace policies. They're being challenged to create environments that support people, strengthen collaboration and earn employees commitment. Every day in this episode, you'll hear three conversations that explore what people need from the places they work, the conversations they have, and the cultures they help build. Together, these ideas paint a broader picture of what it takes to create workplaces where people can do their best work. Lets begin. As organizations continue redefining the role of the office, many leaders are asking a simple what makes employees genuinely want to come in? Wesley Edmonds is the Director of Workplace at ofs, where she helps organizations better understand how furniture, workplace strategy and thoughtful design support the future of work. Drawing on her background in interior design and commercial workplace consulting, she also hosts the in the room series on OFS's Imagine a Place podcast exploring workplace trends alongside industry leaders. How can organizations create workplaces that people choose to return to even when they have the flexibility to work elsewhere?

Speaker B: When I go in, I can find the place that works for the work I need to do. Today Frank and I are going to have a meeting. I need to find a small space where we can step aside and get some work done. On Wednesday I'm going to go in and I need to meet with my team. I need a large space and I need to know that all of the different types of spaces that will allow me to be productive and to meet with my team and enjoy the culture of the company I work for and believe in are all in that physical space I'm arriving to or it's not worth going. I do think it's embedded in the employee's decision. I think. I don't know if you want to call it naivete or ignorance or what, but I think at some point I would have said well of course they're going to want to go in. They've got great people they work with and a really good culture and why wouldn't you want to be with people? And Covid hit my world with a newborn and a three year old at home and I think that pretty much that's all I need to say about that. That shattered all of my beliefs on you just go in because you want to. Because the truth is life is crazy for everybody. And once that what I believe the flex world has known for a very long time, but the traditional work world has been slower to adopt is the truth of the fact that our human lives are made up of so much more than that work portion of our lives. And so it can't just be, uh, an internal desire to go into work with when the other factors that are at play, when children, um, errands like you said, aging parents, uh, you know, coming to live, there's so, I mean countless things that could be going on in someone's life that are going to override eventually that. I go in because I like the office and I like the people I work with. So in my world that goes back to the designer and we say, okay, what are you going to do to make those people who have a million things going on come in at least three days a week and be excited about it? And we get into that, ah, really a human centered design.

Speaker A: Wesley reminds us that workplace decisions begin with understanding people. Physical spaces matter, but they are only one part of the employee experience. The conversations happening inside those workplaces are equally important as more organizations recognize the connection between employee well being and business professional performance leaders are asking how to have these conversations in ways that genuinely help people. Melissa Dohman is an organizational psychologist, former mental health therapist, author and founder of the Workplace Mental Health Method. She works with organizations around the world to help leaders improve communication, strengthen team relationships and build practical approaches to workplace mental health. What does an effective workplace conversation about mental health actually look like?

Speaker C: There are trillions of dollars lost globally to poor mental health. Productivity goes down, morale goes down, ability to collaborate effectively goes down. The ability to innovate goes down. The ability to communicate effectively goes down. Uh, feeling, motivation for your job. You know, all of these things are impacted because this organ, and it's just an organ, but it's a very important one. So if we don't focus on the maintenance of this organ that governs who we are, how we act, how we feel, how we relate to our environment, what do we think is going to happen when every company, with the exception of roles that are given away to AI, and that's all I'm going to say today, every role is staffed by a human being. So if you're not going to focus on literally just the maintenance of this organ, it's not about wellness and positive and rainbows and puppies, even though we love all those things, it's not about that. It's just about Freaking maintenance. What do you expect is going to happen? That's the way I look at it. Irrefutable logic and data. The term I would use is effective, not safe or unsafe. I, um, would say effective and appropriate. So, first of all, I want to be very clear. There are some companies and some teams where it will never be safe to have this conversation. So the first thing that I say is, you know, before you even try to talk about mental health, take a, uh, very honest look at the people you work with and the company you work with. Have you seen successful examples of people talking about emotional health? Have you seen when people talk about emotional health that they are retaliated against? Look at your environment. The environment will tell you whether or not it is actually psychologically safe, hopefully, to have this conversation the second thing, before you talk about mental health at all. And again, this doesn't have to be a diagnosis. Uh, what are your rights as an employee in your country when you talk about mental health so you don't get discriminated against? This is literally a reason that I partnered with an employment attorney, uh, to, for example, in the United States, around the Americans with Disabilities act and knowing about protected characteristics, know your rights about how you share the implication of that, what your protections are, are. Now, if you're actually going to share, you have to think about, if I'm going to share about my mental health in the workplace, why do I want to do that? What are the key details I need to share? What is the purpose? Why am I sharing this information? What do I want people to do with this information? What do I plan to do with this information? Because a lot of companies where they get it wrong is they say, mental health is important, raw. And I go, you haven't taught people how to say anything. You haven't taught them how to tailor the conversation based on the audience. You haven't tailored the wording to use that's supposed to be effective, which is literally why I wrote the books. There are literal scripts and action plans and methods of effective ways to talk about mental health and ineffective ways to talk about mental health.

Speaker A: Creating better workplaces also requires examining the beliefs that influence leadership, culture and employee expectations. Some of those conversations have existed for generations. Questions about work have existed for centuries. What changes from one generation to the next is often less about the questions themselves and more about how organizations choose to answer them. Angela R. Howard is the founder of Call for Culture and an organizational culture strategist who helps leaders create workplaces centered on equity, dignity, and sustainable organizational practices. Drawing on years of executive leadership experience. She advises organizations on culture, leadership, and the relationship between work and society. What workplace assumptions have persisted across generations, and why is it time to challenge, challenge them?

Speaker D: There is a, um, there's actually a Reddit thread that if any of you are interested, there's newspaper clippings from like, 1863, like, going all the way back. Newspaper clippings. The kids don't want to work, everyone's lazy, Nobody wants to work anymore. Like, we've been through this story over and over again, Although I think we're talking about there's been some differences and, you know, know it's all about progress, right? Each generation is looking to advance and progress. I would argue, though, that we've been asking for similar things since the beginning of time. Uh, you and I talked about the, you know, uh, ancient Egypt and the first strikes that happened. Everything is centered around dignity and respect and things like fair pay and, you know, um, caring about the people we employ. So what the book is about is what are those common myths that have seeped into every generation that we need to start debunking to get ahead of this conversation? Because if we're going to do this every generation, how much time are we wasting? How much, uh, harm are we doing potentially generation to generation? Let's get to the basics about what we need to fix. At the root, I think what we're seeing this generation, which is a little bit different, is I actually want to de. Emphasize work. I want work to have less meaning in my life because I want the social systems around me to actually benefit my life. And work is a piece of that. We have Gen Z caring less about work. Um, I struggle with this concept because I think work is stepping in where there's a gap or a void. We have to be looking at other social systems and structures to be questioning why do we put so much of, uh, our identity into work.

Speaker A: Today's conversations remind us that the future of work begins with understanding people before policies. Wesley encouraged us to think differently about the workplace itself, showing that employees are far more likely to come together when offices support the work they need to accomplish and acknowledge the realities of life outside the workplace. Melissa emphasized that healthy organizations depend on effective communication around mental health. Those conversations require preparation, trust, and leaders who understand both their responsibility and the practical tools available to support their teams. Angela brought the discussion into a, uh, broader context, reminding us that many workplace debates repeat across generations. Her perspective encourages leaders to focus less on stereotypes and more on the enduring principles of dignity, fairness, and respect that employees have sought throughout history. Taken together, these conversations encourage organizations to design workplaces, conversations and cultures with people at the center. The future of work will be defined by leaders who understand that business performance and human experience are deeply connected. Thanks for listening to this Expert Insights episode of the Future of Work podcast. If you found it insightful, share it with a colleague, leave us a review, or check out our show notes for links to each guest's full interview. Until next time, keep asking not just where we work, but how we work better together.