Going off to university has become a rite of passage for many young people across Europe. 

While it is undoubtedly an exciting and positive time for many, transitioning from young adults living at home into life in a new place surrounded by new people, can be a difficult and anxious experience too. In the last two years, the division and isolation of the pandemic has only heightened those feelings for many. 

Over the last few years, purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) operators have learnt how to best support and nurture their communities, and while the pandemic was a difficult time for everyone, the resounding positive was the change in attitude towards discussing mental health. 

While not an easy topic to broach, the normalisation of a formerly taboo subject means that well-being is now being spoken about everywhere, from the common room to the boardroom. Although this shift is a welcome change, it has also presented a new challenge for PBSA operators and any organisation responsible for communities of people. 

The Importance of Feeling Good

The first, and most important, step in addressing this challenge, is figuring out how to continually put physical, financial, and mental health at the centre of your offering. We must all really listen to our customers’ needs and ensure they are the primary focus when forming provision and service, then you guarantee the continued creation of social value beyond the four walls of a student residence.

To build purpose into student accommodation means realising the purpose and potential of the customers who live within the space. A stable well-being baseline lays the foundation for a fulfilled university experience. Ensuring student wellness, through safe, inspiring living spaces, as well as catered mental health provision and the facilitation of a social environment, sets students up in the best way to tackle their studies, as well as young adult life. 

Each student is different, which is why the spaces we design and the communities we create must be flexible, adaptable and overwhelmingly practical. Undergraduates need spaces to foster social interaction, casual study, and places to host their friends and families as they transition to a new phase in life. Postgraduates might need more dedicated space for quiet study or research, or spaces tailored to fostering mindfulness and relaxation. International students often require all of the above, while also needing the surety of a flexible, yet reliable and welcoming environment to ease their transition into new countries and cultures.

If there’s anything we’ve learnt from the pandemic, and the needs of students, it’s to really listen to their needs first and ensure quality and attention to detail in our responses to those topics.  PBSA offerings need to provide flexible, accessible and inspiring spaces, alongside a transparent, friendly and reassuring service provision and must constantly adapt to the changing needs and wants of our student communities. 

This is what it truly means for student accommodation to be purpose-built.

‍

The Happiness Moonshot

While there has been a concerted push from the sector to have student well-being as our central focus, there is so much more we could do. A survey answered by over 500 students commissioned by Nido in September, showed 95% of participants would find dedicated resources on the theme of well-being like Insta lives or YouTube shorts helpful. 

The topics most requested included how to balance sleep with lectures, nights out and study, alongside tips for studying well, reducing stress and optimising productivity but also loneliness and anxiety featured heavily. 

The pandemic saw so much of our hybrid lives move onto virtual platforms, which increased national levels of loneliness and anxiety. At Nido we felt we needed to create a virtual environment which replicated the comfort, stimulation and sociability of in-person experiences. Nido became the first PBSA operator to fully integrate virtual provisions into its offering, engaging both domestic and international students across all our operated buildings. This meant that even before students took their first step through our doors, students are encouraged to embrace feeling part of the Nido community. It also enabled our students to meet other people that were staying in their building but also engage with the wider community allowing interaction and friendships to flourish across different geographies.

Similarly, in 2021, following this survey, Nido entered a partnership with chartered psychologist Dr Tara Quinn-Cirillo to directly respond to the challenges and issues being faced by our residents. This partnership allowed us to have medical professional advice on our offering, and also acted as a form of external scrutiny, providing fresh ideas and insight.

Dr Tara created a practical toolkit, that Nido residents could utilise to navigate their way through these difficult environments and exceptionally tough situations. This included a podcast during lockdown, which later evolved into interactive live sessions broadcast in each Nido common room, covering topics from dealing with change to balancing student life to promoting mindfulness in a period of transition. 

After each live session, the recording is placed on a ‘well-being hub’ which can be accessed by residents later in a more private environment. An infographic is also produced to complement and summarise the content in recognition of different learning styles and preferences. In a world of instant media, we’ve found that shorter-form content is much preferred and more likely to be utilised by students.

The Well-being Baseline 

Something that resonated with our residents and staff team was the concept of a ‘well-being base line’, one of the concepts Dr Tara’s guided us to, that focuses on Well-being being part of the everyday experience of students and not just for times of loneliness or anxiety.

Nido’s events programme is integral to the overall experience of our students year after year. It also integrates international communities faster, by celebrating diversity and inclusion. Events including Chinese New Year, Ramadan, Iftar and Diwali are some of our most popular, alongside our well-being focused events and classes, including yoga, exercise classes, cookery classes and mindfulness workshops. 

Central to the success of this programme has been the technology to power and promote it. Nido has recently launched a new multilingual app and website, which increased levels of communication across our communities. The platform encourages students to book events and incubate forums and societies within residences. 

This all came from a focus on transparency, accessibility, and reassurance, to foster the creation of a sense of place and a community of like-minded students beyond the bounds of any given residence.

Effectiveness of the Holistic Approach

What we learned was that fostering student well-being and creating social value has to be a holistic enterprise, accounting for student’s mental, physical and financial well-being.

Although fostering student well-being isn’t a numbers game, the numbers speak for themselves. From a community of 2,400 residents across the portfolio, Nido’s virtual provisions have gained over 15,500 views and averaged 140 live viewers within each session. The programmes proved extremely beneficial and engaging for both students and us as operators. 

When international students were surveyed as to how well Nido handled student well-being provision, 79% rated Nido’s performance as “good” or “very good”. In last year’s National Student Housing Survey (NSHS) report, Nido’s value for money rating exceeded the average benchmarks for other providers, and a +31 point increase in our NPS score. But student experience cannot be reduced to a number, and so it’s the satisfaction of students in the Nido experience which inspires us to push for more.

The challenges of the pandemic necessitated thinking outside the box, and it is these innovations which enabled us to provide a market-leading service for our residents, and a resilient offering to our investors. However, the world is always changing and no two students are the same, so continued innovation and understanding is needed if PBSA operators across the board are to keep fostering a sense of place for our residents.

Purpose built and built for purpose? We must listen to our customers to find out.