Providing a safe space for employees or students to meditate, to pray or to rest from periods of stress or invisible disabilities is an integral part of the well-being practice for businesses or schools.

Employers have a duty to provide individuals of any faith, or those without religious beliefs, the opportunity to undertake their own specific practices, which might include a quiet place for rest or mindfulness.

The facilities for this can be thought of like bathrooms or similar facilities, readily accessible to all. It may not be something employees even know to ask for.

“I have heard many stories of employees praying in stairwells or travelling long distances to mosques during Ramadan or other religious holidays because their office does not provide the appropriate facilities. Other employees have no space to recover from an intense period of stress or anxiety.” Lucy Brown- Founder of Diversity Dreaming

The tips below provide ideas on how to set up a Multi-Faith and Well-being Room for small and large offices or schools. This room also has a different objective to a Wellness room, read more about those here.

Gather support

Firstly, gather support from your office manager or local leader. Ideally, this would be led from a nationwide point of view, however sometimes it can be easier to make a change in one office and gather interest that spreads to other offices. Having support from local/national leadership will give you back-up when making physical changes to your office.

Find a suitable space

Next, you will need to determine where the Multi-Faith and Well-being Room will be implemented. Ideally this would be a spare meeting room. For most offices, a room that could seat two people will likely be sufficient. This provides room for one or two employees to pray at the same time, or for someone to bring in support to help them meditate or rest from an invisible disability. However for larger offices this may require a larger room to ease congestion during peak use.

If your office has no feasible rooms to use, one option could be to close off a small corner of the office using dividing screens. This area should be as far away from working employees as possible, however any privacy is better than nothing, as may currently be the case. Alternatively using a working meeting room with a booking system, with priority as a well-being room, or set hours could work.

Furnish appropriately

At a minimum this area/room will require one or two chairs, accessible floor space and a sign to indicate whether the room is in use. An outlook calendar could be used to allow employees to book a regular slot if necessary.

From experience, for rooms that get a significant amount of use, for example in central London over lunch time, queues can form. In particular this can be due to the fact that in some religions, different genders cannot pray next to each other. A dividing screen can help to enable all genders to pray concurrently, however if there is not enough room, I am told a strip of tape across the middle of the room/area will also provide a sufficient boundary.

Providing storage facilities for prayer items or meditation books can also be helpful. As can comfortable seating or pillows/rugs. The ability to lower the level of lighting can be an added bonus.

In reality this space can be as simple or as kitted out as you can afford; the main purpose is to provide employees with a safe space to be at one with their thoughts and escape from the hustle and bustle of modern life.

Have you implemented a Multi-Faith and Well-being Room in your office? Share your photos and experiences below and inspire others. You can also contact me directly by clicking the “Ask a question” button at the top of the page if there is anything above that I can help you with.