Many organizations have traditionally supported their employees’ physical and mental health through a variety of office-based programs and interventions. The shift from in-office work to working from home, which has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, requires organizations to update their toolbox to continue supporting a healthy and happy workforce. In this paper, we review research on successful, evidence-based interventions in four key areas of physical and mental health: physical activity and sedentary behavior, nutrition, loneliness, and stress. We show how organizations could adapt these interventions to a home-based office environment and conclude by highlighting areas of future research, as well as by discussing the role of health professionals and policymakers in designing effective interventions for the future of work.

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Conversational agents (CAs) are effective tools for health behavior change, yet little research investigates the mechanisms through which they work. In accordance with the Computer as Social Actors (CASA) paradigm, we suggest that agents are perceived as human-like actors and hence influence behavior much as human coaches might. As such, agents should be designed to resemble ideal interaction patterns-for example, by resembling their users. Our study will test this paradigm by testing the impact of customization on similarity and reciprocity, which in turn are hypothesized to improve perceptions of the agent and compliance with the agent's recommendations.

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In a series of eight studies, spanning laboratory and field experiments, we examined the effect of messages describing the present and/or future consequences of prolonged sitting on standing behavior among desk-based workers. Providing a meta-analytic summary of our findings, we show that the exact phrasing of the message to encourage standing doesn’t produce differing results, but simply asking participants to invest in their health results in a standing rate of roughly 71% across studies and a range of demographics. In addition, our studies highlight the significance of friction; not only does the proportion of participants who chose to stand up decrease as the behavior of standing up becomes more burdensome, but also as the required time commitment increases. Lastly, we present insights on the impressions given by the message content, highlighting that while the effect of the messaging on standing may be indistinguishable, how the messages are perceived matters and should be taken into account.