In recent years, I've often heard the term 'wellbeing management.'
It's a management philosophy that values enabling employees to approach their work while feeling fulfilled, both physically and mentally.
As part of this,more companies are placing art in their office and business spaces.
The Difference Between Wellbeing Management and Health Management
Health management is an initiative, from the company's perspective, to protect employees' health.
Wellbeing management takes the employee's perspective. It is described as an approach that aims to increase engagement and productivity by creating a state in which people are fulfilled physically, mentally, and socially, and able to work with vitality.
In the 2025 certification of Excellent Health Management Corporations, it has been reported that greater weight is now placed on the actual "results" of these initiatives. It's not just about the form the efforts take, but about how people have actually changed.
Why "Place" Affects the People Who Work There
In recent years, the effects of placing art in offices have been examined in several studies.
Kyoto Institute of Technology and Casie Inc., with the cooperation of Takasago Thermal Engineering, conducted a joint study comparing meeting rooms with and without art on display. 380 people took part in the impression evaluation, and 99 people in the productivity measurement. Productivity was measured by having participants solve, within five minutes, a hyakumasu calculation grid mixing three-digit and two-digit numbers.
The results reportedly suggested that displaying art in a room may have a positive effect on productivity. This was presented at the Architectural Institute of Japan's annual conference in September 2023.
Professor Hideaki Kawabata of Keio University's Faculty of Letters studies the effects of art appreciation on metacognition and wellbeing. It has also been reported that appreciating art can work to ease the way pain is perceived.
Research in this area is still accumulating. It's not yet a stage where the effects can be stated definitively. Even so, a direction is becoming visible: a place with art does have some kind of effect on the people who work there.
Placing What's Hard to Convey in Numbers, Within the Space
In business, there are things that are easy to express in numbers, and things that are not.
Sales and headcount can be counted. But what this company values, and what kind of future it wants to create, cannot be reduced to numbers.
Even if you put that into words and share it, it gets buried in the flow of daily work.Placing it somewhere visible, as color and form, makes it harder to forget.
The same is true for visitors. Before any company brochure, a single piece on the wall conveys the atmosphere of the business.
About Mermaid nao's BUSINESS ART
At Mermaid nao, I create BUSINESS ART, custom-ordered artwork for businesses.
Through dialogue with business owners and founders, I learn about the origins of the company, its philosophy, the future it wants to deliver, and the impressions it wants to avoid. What I receive there, I translate into color, form, and light, and turn into a single original painting.
Each piece is created to suit its installation location and intended use, and delivered framed. The process and pricing are listed on the order page.
[Reference Information, Sources]
JLL (What Is an Office Strategy to Achieve "Wellbeing Management"? Also Explaining Its Relationship to Health Management)
Karada Design Co., Ltd. (Health Management and Wellbeing Management in the Generative AI Era, 2025 Edition)
PR TIMES (Art Exhibits Contribute to Improved Employee Productivity and Relaxation Effects [Joint Research with Kyoto Institute of Technology])
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (Capturing the Evidence for the "Benefits of Art" Through the Workings of Mind and Brain — Hideaki Kawabata, Topic Presentation Material)
https://www.jll.com/ja-jp/insights/what-is-office-strategy-to-achieve-well-being-management
https://www.karadadesign-management.jp/post/ai-kenkoukeiei-wellbeing
https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000037.000040504.html
https://www.meti.go.jp/shingikai/mono_info_service/art_economic/pdf/001_09_00.pdf
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