Medella; The Balance between Work and Life 394 views

Good mental and physical health can be hard to maintain. How can we help people improve and maintain their mental and physical health? Companies have a financial interest in the health of their employees, but fulltime employees have little time to learn about their health needs. Using Agile methodology, the research team built Medella, an online platform that sends employees health information through blog posts, videos, newsletters, and quizzes. Companies can request health topics tailored to registered employees; individual employees can further tailor the information they receive. Without assembling content themselves, companies can inform their employees at scale. Medella fulfills the client’s specifications. Work-life balance is correlated with mental and physical health. Employers’ and employees’ work-life balance expectations vary. Employees typically value free time, preferring work benefits such as vacation time and flexible scheduling. They typically also value family benefits, such as childcare assistance and parental leave. To employers, however, such benefits are expensive and sometimes disruptive. For example, employees returning from parental leave may struggle to reintegrate at work. Work-life balance is a continuous negotiation between employers and employees.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

health and wellness; work-life balance; health in the workplace

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Technical Advisor: Ahmed Ibrahim STS Advisor: Peter Norton Technical Team Members: Audrey Fifer, James Hamil, Grace Huang, Jackson Kennedy, David Meihani, Aditi Takle

English

2020-05-05