Quality of Work Life

Mental Health Awareness Month: Roberta’s House

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a tradition dating to 1949, and we wanted to honor the occasion by highlighting one of the most fulfilling projects we’ve been involved in recently.

Our introduction to Roberta’s House came via a business networking group where we met one of the owners and founders of Penza Bailey Architects, who had been asked to work on a new project there. Roberta’s House is a community grieving center offering programs for children and families. According to their Mission Statement:

“We believe all children and families suffering the loss or death of a loved one should have support and a safe place to heal and recover. Roberta’s House addresses grief as a public health preventive service.”

Our early involvement brought us into contact with Annette March-Grier, RN, Founder and President of Roberta’s House and, more to the point, a force of nature whose sheer willpower and drive provided the fundraising momentum for the new project. (Roberta’s House is named for Annette’s mother, Julia Roberta March.)

That project was the construction of a new 22,000-square-foot facility on North Avenue in Baltimore, Roberta’s House Grief Support Center, a Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Building. This was an undertaking that broke new ground both literally and figuratively, becoming the first newly-constructed bereavement center providing mental health services in an urban community by an African-American nonprofit organization.

We were called in to provide design services, furniture and labor throughout all three floors of the new facility, including offices, conference rooms, intake areas, a nourishment center, theatre area and the Rays of Hope Center. We were initially taken aback by the request that the facility feature bright colors throughout, which seemed counterintuitive for a grieving center. Roberta’s House, however, is focused on celebrating life with color and bright, open and welcoming spaces.

We worked side by side with Annette for two years, designing layouts and selecting furniture and finishes. Our team found ways to stay within budget by combining rich-looking patterns and fixtures with lower-cost options, even coming up with a different look and feel for each therapy room; each has its own color scheme and different types of furniture from the others.

The gratifying result is a bright and welcoming facility carefully designed to meet the needs of staff and clients alike as they work through the bereavement process and rebuild family dynamics. We’re honored to have participated in such an important project.

To see more of the new Roberta’s House Grief Support Center, and learn more about the history and mission of Roberta’s House, see the video on this page.

Educating in Safer Spaces

The only certainty in education during the pandemic has been uncertainty. Some schools remain closed, others are educating in person and still others have embraced a hybrid model to accommodate students both onsite and at home. Make educating in safer spaces a priority!

For those with students on site, educators and administrators know that the same old ways of doing things won’t work in a pandemic environment. Changes in both procedures and the physical environment, including administrative offices, have been necessary.

For teachers, principals and other administrators readying for a return to the classroom, here’s a look at some components of a safer educational space.

Flexibility: We’ve written many times here about the various benefits of flexible education spaces during normal times, and the ability to adapt has become even more important during COVID-19. Not only does it make sense to have different configurations to support different types of learning, having flexibility makes it easier to accommodate physical distancing.

Sanitizer stations: Clean, sanitized hands are the goal under any circumstances, and never more than now. Touchless sanitizer stations located prominently throughout a school will help achieve that goal.

Desk partitions: We’re seeing a lot of demand now for divider partitions for desks and tables. These are typically transparent to allow eye contact and communication when collaborating on projects, but provide a physical barrier against sneezes and other droplet transmission.

Cubicle walls: For settings that already have cubicles, wall heights are increasing for those same reasons. Many cubicle systems can be retrofitted with higher walls for greater safety in multi-person spaces.

Countertop sneeze guards: From reception to teachers’ desks to cafeteria settings, sneeze guards are also in high demand. Like desk partitions, they’re transparent and offer a physical barrier to reduce the risk of transmission.

With proper planning and design modifications, classrooms can be a safer space for students and educators alike.

Questions about furniture or design for education? Contact Douron.

WFH and You: Keeping Your Mental Well-Being

For more than a month most of us have been doing the work from home (WFH) routine, and we’re feeling the effects for sure. Isolation, uncertainty about the future, cabin fever … the combination is stressing out even the best of us.

We miss our co-workers (most of them, anyway). It’s great that we have Zoom meetings, but they’re just not the same. And if you’re at home with family members, you’ve probably found that it’s possible to simultaneously feel loneliness and a need for privacy.

While not having a commute is fine, that means literally no boundaries between home and office. It’s hard to concentrate on work with all the at-home distractions, but also hard to step away as the hours and days run together.

The first thing to understand is that while you may be physically alone, you’re not alone in experiencing whatever your state of mind is right now. We’re all adjusting in our own way, and some are handling things better than others, but we’re all struggling to some degree.

What to do about it? A few suggestions:

Boundaries: Have a schedule for work … and a schedule for play. When you set a finish line you protect yourself from the never-ending WFH workday. And physical boundaries are important too: give yourself a private work area if you can.

Analog time: Screen breaks should be a part of your day in any situation, but they’ve never been more important. Chances are pretty good that you’re staring at a computer screen all day, Netflix all night and your phone in between. Your brain and your eyes need relief. Try an old-fashioned book or a jigsaw puzzle instead, and put that time on your schedule too.

Move it: Exercise helps with stress and anxiety, of course, and it’s never been more important. Get a daily walk in, and if you can do that surrounded by nature instead of traffic, even better. If the weather’s not cooperating, make an exception to the screen-time rule and find workout videos you like online, but do something every day.

Connect: You may have Zoom fatigue in your business life, but it is a good tool to connect with friends and family. No, it’s not as much fun as being together, but it beats not connecting at all.

Unprecedented times call for a change in habits. These will help.

Questions about your work environment? Contact Douron.

Cleaners and Disinfectants recommended by the CDC

The most reliable way to prevent infection from surfaces is to regularly wash hands with soap and water or use alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Cleaning and disinfecting surfaces can also reduce the risk of infection. Cleaners and disinfectants recommended by the CDC to combat COVID-19 when cleaning guidelines are followed as directed:

Detergent or Soap and Water (prior to disinfection)
1:5 Bleach/Water Solution
Alcohol-Based Cleaners (at least 70% alcohol)
Quaternary-Based Disinfectants
Hydrogen-Peroxide Based Cleaners

When practicing healthy cleaning habits, make sure to clean high-touch surfaces regularly. Cleaning with cleaners that contains soap or detergent reduces the amount of germs on surfaces and decreases the risk of disease. Take steps to limit contamination of surfaces from airborne particles or from touching surfaces with contaminated hands.

NOTE: As always, when using any cleaners and disinfectants, it is important to follow the manufacturer’s instructions, not saturate the surface of the fabric or vinyl, and remove all residue with a clean, damp cloth so the surface of the fabric or vinyl will not be damaged. It is also important to ensure adequate ventilation for the safety and well being of yourself.

For additional information on COVID-19, please visit CDC.gov.

The safety and well-being of our customers are very important to us. We urge all to take precautions to remain healthy and inhibit the spread of the virus.

Douron COVID-19 Update

Clients and Staff,

The core of our business has always been the people we serve and the mutual relationships we enjoy. Therefore, our foremost concern is the health and safety of everyone.

We are committed to continuing operations and want to assure you that while many of our employees are not physically in the office, you would never know it. Over the past few years, we have adopted and implemented remote work policies with our staff. From soft-phone applications and cloud-hosted email, we have spent the past several years building an infrastructure which truly allows our office staff to work seamlessly from anywhere they can connect to the internet. We use video conferencing, screen sharing, and various other tools to effectively work in teams whether we can sit together or not. We do not expect to experience any disruptions to our services.

Our intention is to continue providing excellent, quality service to all of our devoted clients. As government mandates are released, we will keep you apprised of any changes.

At this time, we expect to be able to receive and deliver all product as previously scheduled. If, for any reason, you are aware of delays or changes to any of your specific projects, timely notification would be greatly appreciated.

We thank you for your continued partnership. We wish safety and wellness for you and yours. Don’t hesitate to call with any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Ronald Hux,
President & Owner

Perceived Privacy in the Office

It’s not exactly breaking news to say that the physical office environment has a direct impact on employee satisfaction. And the trend towards open office plans in general has had a negative effect on satisfaction levels in many cases. Employers may feel that they’ve taken reasonable steps to ensure privacy, but as the old marketing maxim says, “Perception is reality.” In other words, if employees think they lack privacy, that is the reality for the leadership of that particular company.

That in a nutshell explains “perceived privacy:” the level of privacy in a work environment really is determined by the opinions of those who work in it. Given the negative effects of environmental stress on employees, this is a real issue for employers.

The two main concerns in workplace privacy are visual privacy (“Are people watching what I’m doing?”) and acoustic privacy (“Are people eavesdropping on my conversations?”).

A European study of several hundred employees at more than two dozen companies of various sizes revealed that the workers expressing the highest satisfaction with their physical environment were those working in cell-offices. That’s no surprise, since “cell-office” translates to a traditional space with permanent walls and doors.

Among those working in shared office spaces, the employees in flexible spaces were happier overall than those in open floor plans. Again, no surprises there, since the concept of a flex office is all about converting the space to current needs, including those that require perceived privacy.

A flexible office plan really offers the best of both worlds, and the advantages of both the traditional cell-office and the open office. The ability to reconfigure space as needed, quickly and easily, offers privacy when it’s needed and an environment that’s more conducive to teamwork when that’s called for.

Questions about planning flexible space for your office? Contact Douron