Dr. Pamela Hymel, Chief Medical Officer, Disney Parks, Experiences and Products
Dr. Bon Ku, Director, Health Design Lab, Thomas Jefferson University
Fatima Paruk, Salesforce
Moderator: Phil Wahba, Senior Writer, FORTUNE


Brainstorm Health 2022 - Bricks, Mortar And Better health: Workspaces Redesigned 

Conferences

Dr. Pamela Hymel, Experiences and Products
Dr. Bon Ku, Thomas Jefferson University
Fatima Paruk, Salesforce


Bricks, Mortar And Better health: Workspaces Redesigned 


Dr. Pamela Hymel, Chief Medical Officer, Disney Parks, Experiences and Products
Dr. Bon Ku, Thomas Jefferson University
Fatima Paruk, Salesforce



Brainstorm Health 2022 - Bricks, Mortar And Better health: Workspaces Redesigned 


Good morning. I'm really psyched about this topic because I feel like every time we open Fortune dot com, which you all showed on a regular basis, we see stories of ceos and corporations that want workers back in the workplace and at the same time when you're based in new york, you're very acutely aware right now that there's another wave of Covid uh and it's coming for your Los Angeles don't get complacent, but why don't I start with uh an opening question that each of you can answer is what do employees want now in their workplace? Like what are they Two years, 26 months in, what do they want? So maybe we'll start with you. Yeah, I think employees are looking for us to take some learning from the covid um period and and help them be more flexible at work. People are looking for hybrid schedules, more opportunity to work from home. But also workplaces that will help support their health and and well, well being when they come back and you just add onto that, I work in a hospital. So in the beginning it was like, we need a place that's physically safe and now we need a place that's emotionally safe and how can we create and design those sanctuary spaces in our workplaces. Like sometimes after a hard case, I kind of want to cry and be alone. You know, I wanna, I wanna decompress for a few minutes, but we we currently don't have those emotionally safe spaces in our, in our workplace. I would love to have a few more of those. Yeah, I love I love your comments on emotional workplace safety aspect, but I think, you know, we we first have to make our workplaces physically safe. And so as employees, people are now looking for reduced exposure to COVID-19, we're all here at a conference and we want to know that we're going to be safe. So I think the days of the open plan office are kind of limited. I think we've seen a trend going back towards smaller where people can isolate if they want to. I think there's an increased focus on making sure we have adequate air filtration, right, clean air. Um you know, things that again are going to reduce our exposure. I think people have gone through so much during this time. I mean I I now have a baby at home, she's nine months old and I I am very scared about contracting covid and taking this home to my loved one. There are a number of people who I know personally who have been diagnosed with cancer during this time and have wanted to work through chemotherapy and and so it becomes how do we keep our most vulnerable employees safe. I'm glad you brought the up the the idea of the space. Um you know, i is our ceo here, he probably doesn't want me to share all this stuff with you. But I was one of the first people to regularly go regularly go back to the fortune offices, but that I felt comfortable because there was almost nobody there. Um and you know when it starts to get more crowded, I was like where can I go? I don't want to, I heard one colleague coughing, you know, where can I, where can I run? You know? Um and so I'm just wondering, you know, is is uh it became the rage in corporate America I think to save money. But you know the the open bullpen thing where you just grab people. And I'm just wondering, even as covid recedes, is there on top of security that worries about privacy or just this desire to not always, you know, I feel people around you. So it's is this a factor of of uh you know where workplaces are heading? Well, I think we need to make our workplaces pandemic safe. We need to design codes that when our employees go in, that they know that we're safe. Every building and space has a fire code. This space that we're in right now there's a fire, it's designed to protect us. There's exit ways here, but we don't have those. We don't have that legal standard for pandemics. You know, why can't our buildings have a pandemic code. So for the next virus and currently like we don't know how many air exchanges do we need in this room right now? On a plane, it's about 12 per hour, what should be the standard for this room that we're in in our workplaces. Okay. Um question quick question for pam. When I saw a headline in a few weeks ago about hugs being back allowed at Disney. I was like, I don't know if I were just an employee, I might, you know, have to have a conversation with my boss, you know? But like how did you go about? You know, I mean all kidding aside, uh you know, reassuring people that that they could, you know, hug. Well, you know, we tried to really use science to educate our cast members. Our employees are called cast members. We did a series of videos called why your actions matter. It really explained about the pandemic. We strongly encourage vaccinations. We had a vaccine mandate and actually for our cast members. So we wanted to make sure that they were safe and that they were also safe as they hug the public. One of the things that we did also, I haven't asked dr pam series that we would go through and we wanted to explain the fact that a quick interaction Less than 15 seconds probably doesn't really denote a close contact. So all of that was part of the educational process but also trying to encourage our for our cast members and their families take advantage of getting vaccinated and being tested on on site if they wanted to um as waste and help them feel protected. Okay. And a question for you. Um what about hospitals and and health care settings? I mean we sort of just take it for granted. It just seems hospitals are chaotic, very busy places. So how can you um you know how how can healthcare healthcare spaces be redesigned to protect employees? Um I actually feel safe in the hospital because I have in 95, I have not contracted coronavirus while working in the hospital, but we have designed spaces that we have to adapt to be in those spaces. So what is it? How can we design a building to have its own metaphorically and 95 right that workers don't have to adapt to the spaces, but the spaces adapt to us. So I think the design has to be very flexible and throughout history we've seen infectious diseases be the most powerful architects of buildings and cities like cholera, tuberculosis, covid is going to have lasting repercussions. We need flexible spaces that adapt to the humans instead of the humans, adapting to the spaces. Okay. Um so what about advice to ceos as they map out the next 5 to 10 years in terms of office needs? Maybe that's where you can start helping. I can I actually just have one more point to to add on to some of the comments that have been made. I think, you know, in addition to communication strategies and the physical design of spaces, I think tech has a strong role to play in this as well. So, for example, when you think about some of the work that's been done with vaccine and safety and and making sure we can create trust with technology and making sure that people are tested and and we're ensuring that, you know, the people that were surrounded with are safe, that that certainly goes a very long way um to creating, you know, comfort and and being back in the workspace. But as I as I think about the ceo role and and and the future, I mean I think it's about creating those flexible and hybrid workspaces, but I think it's also understanding employees and their needs and figuring out how to personalize um mental health and wellness in a holistic manner that's going to move the needle on on making workplaces more desirable to be in physically? You guys have thoughts on that. What what should we be thinking about? Well, they should develop empathy for the workers. You know, a ceo should work a 12 hour overnight shift in the nurse's shoes and observe or be with that employee who has three kids at home and they're, you know, they're not in daycare and they're trying to do hybrid work. You know, what's it like to step in the shoes of your employee and you also code designed the workspace together. That's not from the top down. But how can you run design workshops and sprints with all the stakeholders and design healthier spaces and I, one of the things we keep talking about is making health the easy choice in the workspace. So how is it designed? So that there is easy access to stairwells, there's walk ability, there's access to healthy food is the first option. There's areas to decompress mindfulness rooms. We're looking at really making sure that those are accessible. Yeah, so our cast members can get access to those easily. Unfortunately have these little phone booths that are for phone. But really I think it's for some primal scream therapy sometimes, like they are the only place in the office where you cannot hear other people at all. And and I think uh you know, we every office should have some of those, but I mean all all kidding aside uh you know, as as ceo think about potential expenses as they, you know, what are some of the things that that they should be thinking about? Are we going to see maybe more uh more sort of improvised little spaces that you can book and you can be alone and you know, call your doctor or just, you know, if you're writing um you know, what does the layout look like in an office? I think it's gonna have to be flexible. We don't know what the next disease characteristics are, even with our current stars Kobe too is continually changing and mutating so we can have the hardware set in place. But then I also think of, you know, what is metaphorically the operating system of those spaces. What sort of like policies can we put in on the fly that are evidence based, there's a whole field called evidence based design and we just don't, we haven't like created those standards. We've been two years into this. What are the current standards to prevent workers from getting sick? It's, I think it's crazy that we don't have the standards and those standards could actually also translate not just for covid but for a whole variety of other, you know, infectious diseases. So, uh, we want to continue to expand on that. I would think. And I mean, I imagine that this pandemic has also been an opportunity to rethink the aspect, not just in terms of covid. I mean there are other things that are unpleasant about office life and the lights and, and overall ventilation and especially when you work in old office buildings in new york, it's like God knows where that air has been. Uh, you know, if you walk down the stairwell, you're like, I mean pre covid. So I'm just wondering, you know, is this, do you, do you expect employers to sort of seize this opportunity? I think they can't afford not to. I think when you, when you look at some of the statistics, um, you know, when, when folks were surveyed by mckinsey did an interesting study, um, a while back where they looked at workers attitudes towards returning to the office and when they surveyed folks, they basically said, hey 19% of people thought that returning to the office would have a positive impact on their mental status, right? And 49% of those people actually said, Hey, this is going to negatively impact me. So there's a lot of work to be done on making sure that people are going to be comfortable and again, it is a little bit of a mindset change and furthermore, in that same study, when they, when they looked at again, attitudes of of returning back to the office and mental health Employees said, um on average that about, I think it was, it was in the 20% range and I forget the exact statistics, but in the 20% range that employers are able to take care of me mentally and have the resources in place and that's a small number because the employers, But you know, and when they were surveyed, 70% of them said, Hey, we think we do a good job of taking care of our employees and making sure that mental health is accessible. So there's a huge disconnect with what employers think that they're offering to two people versus what people actually need and and feel that they can, they can go after and get when they need help. Um, so I think again, it is going to be a mindset change and we're gonna have to just do a better job of taking care of our employees as humans first. Okay. Any final thoughts? Yeah. I think one of the things around all of the mental and emotional well being is um it is actually good to get back and be able to congregate with other people to be able to collaborate in person. How do we do that in a blended way so that people can still have the flexibility to be home, But also the opportunity to interact with others again is a positive. Well on that note, join me in thanking our panelists for joining us. Thanks for doing that.