Business-as-usual won’t keep your best employees around. Here’s what will.
As more businesses see their employees return to the office full time, it can feel like a restoration of the familiar. But, in the midst of Mental Health Awareness Month, it’s important to take a step back and realize that business-as-usual isn’t what’s going to keep your best employees around.
Workers Want to Know That Their Employers Value Them
According to the 2025 Work in America™ Survey from the American Psychological Association, 93% of workers say that it’s very or somewhat important to work for an organization that values their emotional and psychological wellbeing, and to work for an employer that supports employee mental health.
This framework offers a starting point for revisiting workspaces in the return-to-work era to make sure you’re taking care of your most valuable asset: your people.
A Sense of Safety
Well-cared for workplace environments promote physical safety and emotional wellness, while silent stressors like air quality, noise, and cleanliness extract not just a bottom line cost but a human cost.
In the facilities management world, the OSHA’s General Duty Clause offers a framework for employee responsibility. But that’s just the start. Looking beyond the official list can help you address issues that make people feel safer at work.
Read more: Fix the silent stressors burning out your FM team
Connection and Community
Only about 3 in 10 workers globally report having a best friend at work. But the best organizations double that figure.
One of the biggest benefits to back-to-office policies is the opportunities for socializing it creates. A more thoughtful approach to the built environment, from office layouts to maximizing space with data from sensors, to providing on-point amenities can make all the difference.
Facility Wellness Checks
Buildings are living, breathing things. To support the people who rely on them, they require regular wellness checks and preventive maintenance to keep them healthy and running at optimal performance.
Fortunately, this is where our operations and maintenance (O&M) teams excel. Our facility engineers stay ahead of issues with a vigorous approach to regular inspections of the core systems that keep buildings functioning, such as fire life safety, HVAC, lighting, and plumbing water supply and waste systems.
Breathing Room
Healthy buildings require healthy air. A reliable facilities manager will have data-supported air quality reports to demonstrate that the air employees are breathing is healthy.
Our experts recommend that you not only stay on top of filtration systems, but also avoid taking shortcuts with restroom exhaust. Your operations and maintenance engineers can help you identify and maintain the equipment that will save you headaches—figuratively and literally.
The Cost of Ignoring Mental Health
The World Health Organization estimates that 12 billion working days per year are lost to depression and anxiety at a cost of $1 trillion in lost productivity.
As workers, and their expectations, have changed since everyone was last in the office, it’s time to ask: What does my team need to do their best work? And how can the space they are working in support those needs?
If you need help answering those questions, and acting on the answers, get in touch with UG2 today.