Crafting better workspaces for women and mothers

.In celebration of International Women’s Day, many companies are striving to create more inclusive workspaces for their employees. Long gone are the days when offices were dull, monotonous places; now, with the addition of diverse amenities such as nursing rooms and family-friendly facilities, employers are finding ways to better support and accommodate working parents, women, and other minority groups.

Ahead of the International Women’s Day on March 8, many companies are doing more to create more inclusive and diverse workplaces for their employees. To do this, companies must consider both the physical spaces and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) components. A great example of this is Trehaus, a 12,000 sq ft co-working and preschool space in Funan Mall that provides a modern village where like-minded parents and employees can gather to work and raise their children in the same space.

JLL, the real estate consultancy, has also incorporated inclusive practices into the design of their offices, such as dedicated nursing rooms, ergonomic chairs, and other fixtures that can accommodate mothers, working parents, and other minority groups. With the prevalence of work-from-home arrangements, employers today are working hard to make their offices more productive places that employees would be interested in returning to, and finding the right balance between office and home comfort.

While these designs and practices are great, Grit Henoch, the immediate past chairperson of JLL’s internal women’s network, asserts that “future office design needs to consider beyond the four walls of the office unit” and involve the landlords and surrounding community as well. To delve Senja Close EC further into how companies can create more inclusive spaces, watch the full interviews on EdgeProp Singapore’s Facebook and YouTube pages, released in celebration of International Women’s Day on Feb 24.

It’s important for employers to recognize that employees want choice and flexibility in where, how and when they are most productive. Companies that can afford a comprehensive refit have the option of incorporating family friendly amenities such as nursing rooms and the like, while those that cannot spare the space or financial expense can look to shared workspaces like Trehaus which offers the same type of services. It’s clear that workspace design is coming a long way in the past decade, and that DE&I is at the core of every workplace strategy.