Why is a positive work environment so important for your team? 🤔
If you're wondering about the ROI of positivity, establishing a positive work environment is a surefire way to:
- Motivate & engage your employees in their everyday work life
- Create a higher sense of job satisfaction among your team members
- Boost retention because folks are happy with their circumstances!
- Reduce stress and improve mental health overall
But how do you get there? What makes up a positive workplace? We'll get to that now!
Top 3 qualities of a positive work environment 🏆
1. Reputation 💬
As the poet Maya Angelou once said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Your company’s reputation is how the public feels about it. A business’s reputation is built over years of success, ethical practices, employee happiness, and customer satisfaction. A reputation can be marred quickly by a team member coming forward and sharing accounts of a negative working experience.
2. Career advancement 📈
Offering employees opportunities to advance within your organization rather than outside of it increases employee engagement and retention rates, and also expands your organization's collective experience, skill, and resources. That type of institutional knowledge is invaluable for your bottom line.
3. Work life balance ⚖️
To ensure employee work-life balance, employers must empower and encourage each team member to enjoy their life outside of work.
A company culture that prioritizes employees’ mental health by providing reasonable vacation and paid time off opportunities, schedule flexibility, and remote options when available reaps the benefit of improved productivity and employee retention.
6 steps for making work a happier place for your team 🙌
1. Improve the physical workspace 💪
A depressing workplace is the enemy of any attempt to create a positive work environment. To attract high performing staff, employers must maintain a high quality workspace -- especially if you're deciding to return to the office.
This can be achieved with the following techniques:
- Provide accessibility options for employees who may work better with access to standing desks, exercise balls, and or ergonomic seating. 🤝
- Prioritize adequate lighting! Employ natural light where possible. If natural light isn’t an option in your workplace, use lights with warmer tones to promote relaxation in break and meeting rooms. Conversely, use lights with cooler tones in areas that require uninterrupted focus. 💡
- Keep employee workstations stocked with functional and quality electronics and supplies. Bonus points for personalization: Add some flair to your office supplies with your own creative logos and branding! ✏️
- Allow team members to individualize their workplace by adding their own unique flair. Hint: empower your employees to show off their creativity and foster their budding green thumb with our terrarium workshop. 🌱
- Create the optimal layout for efficient and open communication. When designing the layout, ask yourself: Which team members require easy access to communicate with others? Which team members require designated private areas to complete tasks?
- Maintain comfortable and inviting break facilities so that employees can actually relax and recharge while on breaks. 🧘
2. Embrace flexibility 🤸
In positive work cultures, employers prioritize each employee feeling like leadership recognizes their humanity. Great employees are individuals with rich personal lives that require a flexible workplace that adapts to their needs–not the other way around.
Employers can embrace and promote flexibility in the workplace by doing the following:
- Create remote work options wherever and whenever possible. Many employees utilize the extra time otherwise spent commuting to attend to personal matters or simply recharge.
- In a similar vein, consider asynchronous work hours. Not everyone is productive at the same time of day – and that’s okay, so long as you have effective communication guidelines in place!
- Offer realistic and flexible paid time off packages for employees at all levels. All work and no play makes Jack look for a new job.
- Allow employees to foster the workspace that best accommodates their needs both physically and mentally. You’d be surprised which of your employees have simple-cost effective strategies to improve productivity in their own spaces.
3. Offer training & development opportunities 🏋️
Employees prefer work environments that offer regular training and professional development opportunities. The proof is in the pudding.
According to research conducted by LinkedIn, a whopping 93% of participants said so themselves. Meeting this demand not only leaves employees feeling happy, it also increases retention and the collective resources and skills available to your company.
How do you invest in a workplace culture that promotes this value?
- Consider offering employees a monthly stipend to spend on trainings and professional development workshops.
- Dedicate one day each quarter exclusively to personal growth and professional development.
- Create peer-to-peer training opportunities and skill-sharing programs at the company.
4. Reward & recognize achievements 🏆
Recognizing good work is integral to fostering a positive work environment. Rewarding great work improves employee engagement and breeds a company culture that strives for excellence.
Rewards and recognition in the workplace include:
- Offer employees paid bonuses.
- Recognize employees’ achievements in public settings.
- Encourage and celebrate peer recognition.
- Recognize work anniversaries!
- Empower those in management to reward staff achievement in real time.
And pro-tip? Make the reward unique to the person who is receiving it.
5. Listen to your employee needs 👂
Employees need to feel like their concerns and ideas are being taken seriously by leadership. In order to achieve this, it is vital that employers actively listen to each member of their team.
In order to encourage employees to voice their needs, an employer is responsible for:
- Establishing regular individual check-ins with Human Resources
- Administering anonymous surveys soliciting feedback
- Implementing feedback and suggestions in a timely fashion
- Making channels of communication to every department clear to each individual team member
6. Remember to have fun 🎊
Congrats! You’ve met your employees’ basic needs. They feel safe, comfortable, recognized, and empowered. Don’t forget to create a workplace that’s fun.
Feeling stumped? Explore our team building games, classes, and experiences today for all the best ideas!
Frequently Asked Questions ❓
What are the 3 most important things in a working environment? 🤔
Reputation, career advancement, and work life balance are integral to a positive work environment.
In order to attract and retain talented employees, your workplace has to have a positive reputation. Employees have to feel like they have opportunities to grow within the workplace rather than leaving to advance. Additionally, to maintain a positive working environment, employees need to feel like their lives outside of work are recognized and respected.
What does a toxic work environment look like? 🧐
A toxic work environment is one in which employees are not afforded work-life balance, adequate communication tools, effective leadership, and growth opportunities. As a result, the company culture becomes riddled with burnout and turnover.
How do I know if my employees are happy? 🤨
You’ll know that your employees are happy when they look forward to coming to work because they feel safe, comfortable, and fulfilled in their career. When work-life balance feels possible, employee happiness is usually not far behind it.
Create happy workplaces with Confetti 🥳
A happy workplace reaps the benefits of long-term retention, increased productivity, and innovation. Maintaining a positive workplace and employee experience takes commitment and creativity.
At Confetti, we can help you with the creative part. Book one of our classes, games or experiences for your staff and show them that you care about their happiness and the culture of your workplace!
