COMMENT With over £43bn of capital raised by companies in the last five years in the digital health sector and as we seek to understand the effects of Covid-19, one of the emerging questions is to what degree we take responsibility for our own health and wellbeing in the home and the workplace. Large technology companies, including Apple, have placed health as one of the top priorities for future growth on a global scale; hardly surprising when you look at the level of investment being pumped into it.
It’s even been quoted that the Apple Watch isn’t just about keeping time and in touch, but it’s a way into the trillion-pound healthcare industry. Wearables are indeed an enabler of digital health. It is a burgeoning sector that entails the wireless sensor-based tracking of a user’s life, which can include moods, nutrition and activities, including sleep. It is no wonder, then, that £13.9bn of capital has been raised in the wearable sector in the past five years, half in the past two years.
Tailoring the work environment
Why should the UK property industry take note? As we found in the Savills “What Workers Want” survey of office workers in 2019, there is a direct positive correlation between workers’ happiness and their mental and physical wellbeing. In this new coronavirus world, the move to a hybrid style of working, which involves working from home more regularly, means the need for organisations to deliver on occupational health must now encompass the home. The question is to what degree organisations will adopt this wearable strategy for workers in the office and at home and to what extent data will be manipulated in order to drive this trend.
A British Council for Offices report in 2016 summarised that wearables are part of a larger trend in intelligent buildings to give inhabitants more control over their environment and create more personalised experiences. This personalised approach can include controlling the temperature and lighting at your work station, assessing levels of stress and even correcting someone’s posture at their desk; all factors in an employee’s mental and physical wellness in the office. Coupled with advancements in the compatibility of office technology with that belonging to employees, and it is clear that a bespoke experience in the office is becoming a thing of the present rather than the future.
Although one may be forgiven for thinking that this is something that has been put on hold for the last few months with many of us working away from the office, quite the opposite is true. Many companies globally have taken the opportunity during this period to look at ways in which to implement this while we have all been working elsewhere. Following this period of lockdown, we wondered whether enabling a seamless connectivity to the employee, via wearables, would still become the norm rather than an exception.
Savills has surveyed office employees on the topic of wearables in the past. Our 2016 “What Workers Want” survey asked the question around tracking employees’ movement in the office, deducing that two-thirds were deeply uncomfortable with that idea and the notion of tracking seemed a one-way benefit to the employer. In a coronavirus-aware world, we wanted to understand whether this attitude had changed.
Changing perceptions
To answer these questions, as part of the Office FiT UK survey that Savills carried out in April this year, we took the opportunity to ask their thoughts about wearables. The survey found that despite 87% of respondents already being in possession of a wearable device, the willingness to share data created from said device with their company was still relatively low (21%). The survey also showed that for the same question only 45% of respondents would feel comfortable sharing data with their doctor. It is clear from these results, therefore, that there is still some way to go if we are to ease the feeling of nervousness around data sharing.
So how do we go about changing peoples’ perception of data sharing as a means to better their experience, not only in the office but also working remotely? Despite a strong appetite for people to adopt this technology for their personal day-to-day use, there still appears to be a bridge of trust to build so employees feel sufficiently comfortable sharing their data for their own benefit as well as that of their employers. Unless there is a shift in this user sentiment, the focus for developers and landlords should be around delivering the best technology solutions for occupiers, while remaining committed to the fundamentals of ensuring health and wellbeing through good design.
Nicky Wightman is director of emerging trends and Steve Lang is director of commercial research at Savills
