By Jeff Wardon, Jr., Assistant Editor

Amenities play an important role in helping employees feel satisfied with both their organizations and healthcare facilities. The right amenities can also help employees decompress from stressful or overstimulating work environments. They can even contribute to an organization’s overall sense of culture.

Healthcare Facilities Today recently spoke with Melanie Parks, managing director for the healthcare division at JLL, about what healthcare organizations can do with their amenities to satisfy their employees.

HFT: Given that sound privacy and workspace maintenance were cited as areas of dissatisfaction, how can healthcare organizations enhance the physical environment—both in patient care areas and employee break rooms—to improve overall employee experience and satisfaction?

Melanie Parks: As it relates to sound privacy, depending on the spaces there, there are options available to help with sound acoustics that can create a greater sense of privacy. The use of white noise as an example of that. Just anecdotally, I was in a doctor's office not too long ago and noticed the addition of white noise and the examination room. The exam rooms had been, in my experience, not very sound insulating. They didn't have great buffering and so you could hear other things when you're inside the room. However, with the addition of the white noise, it made a difference to me compared with previous visits.

Another option that I would encourage organizations to think about is dedicating spaces where employees can go to have a private conversation during break. With respect to the workspace maintenance, if an organization has a proactive maintenance program in place, employees aren't going to have to be concerned about lights being out, finding that the bathroom is inadequately stocked or break room equipment isn't working. So proactively addressing these items so that it works without having to really think about it. That's the ideal scenario, but of course we can't realistically expect everything to be perfect all the time.

Related: What Amenities Can Relieve Stress at Children's Hospitals?

So, it's important to also focus on having a well communicated and easy process in place to be able to report any sort of maintenance concerns. Also, I think equally important to that is making sure that there's timely response to concerns that are reported. There are technology solutions out there that can address some of these items so that it operates seamlessly for the organization and the employees.

HFT: What roles do amenities like green spaces, break rooms and other well-maintained rest areas play in retaining healthcare employees? How can healthcare organizations ensure these spaces are not only available but also accessible to all employees?

Parks: I think we all appreciate a change of scenery from time to time, and I think having a space that one can count on as a place for some quick downtime or some place to just be away from the hub of activity is really important to be able to recharge on the job. If an organization has the ability to do so, providing more than one type of space option to do this and strategically place space throughout the workplace.

Those spaces need to be readily accessible to employees, yet they could still feel tucked away from the active workspaces. The spaces don't have to be elaborate, they can be very simple. So certainly, if you know cost is a concern, you can be respectful of that in the process. Spaces should also be clean, well maintained and inviting.

Organizations can also look at using these spaces to help convey their company’s culture. Again, I think culture is an important consideration for employees and that sense of how they feel and how they belong in an organization. The organization can do this in the way that they furnish the space or in the items they want to display in the room. Or they can allow the space to actually be considered the employee's space, where employees can decorate it during the holidays or special events as an example to help give them that sense of belonging.

Jeff Wardon, Jr., is the assistant editor for the facilities market.