How To Improve Your Work Atmosphere
Improving the work environment has obvious benefits. Nonetheless, company executives sometimes miss the obvious and end up increasing the pressure on workers in a bid to boost productivity.
The returns on such an approach to staff management are often counterproductive. The atmosphere becomes tense and you have a bunch of unhappy people working for you.
Needless to say, making the work environment conducive and friendly is a crucial component in the machinery of a successful long-lasting business.
You need to set a stage for every member of staff to perform at their optimum. Unfortunately, achieving this task can be overwhelming as each individual has different needs.
So, how do you provide an inspiring work atmosphere that is both comfortable and productive?
Well, there are lots of things that can be done to increase the overall happiness of your organization. We will now look at a couple of them.
Ways to Improve Your Work Environment
1) Hire Happy People
It is best to hire people who are naturally happy since they will make your overall workplace much more lighthearted without any significant effort.
When hiring, most people focus on the interviewee’s past achievements, experience etc.
Although it is nice to pay attention to those things, you should also pay close attention to their natural personality.
Even though a person may seem like the perfect fit based on their resume, they are not necessarily the best person to bring into your work according to DST.
You need to also pay attention to the intangible. You should pay attention to how you actually feel around the person.
During the interview, observe whether the person focuses more on the positive or negative things.
You should also note their expressions including laughs, smile and if they are open to creating and maintaining positive relationships.
Even though personal track record and performance is essential, you should be aware that a highly accomplished person with a gloomy demeanor will greatly reduce overall happiness, productivity and motivation levels in your workplace.
2) Pay Attention To The Community
You should also encourage co-workers to say hi to one another. This sounds like a very simple thing to encourage, but it is a great way to build the community in your workplace that most people tend to forget.
You can initiate this by making it into a policy that everyone says hi. You should choose various people from different levels of your company and ensure they do so.
Once everyone starts to acknowledge one another, it will completely change the workplace for the better.
3) Break The Routine Once In Awhile
It is hard to focus on the big picture, especially during busy times. As a result, this often prevents planning fun activities and events that can make everyone in the workplace happier.
You should give your workers a treat by planning a surprise and fun activity.
For example, you can plan an entire day at the amusement park, massage treatments for everyone, movie, and lunch or dinner etc.
You should think about all the various ways you can make your employees happier and improve the overall morale.
4) Make Sure Your Employees Know That You Care
The Hawthorne effect reveals that when people feel that they are cared about, their productivity increases.
Basically, it actually makes people happier when they are asked about themselves and their lives.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you spend hours with them every day, talking about every detail of their lives.
However, you should take some time to ask each person how they are and what’s going on with them.
5) Selfish Thinking Should Be Encouraged Sometimes
One of the secrets of getting people to be happy at their workplace is to encourage them with their own career goals, according to the professionals.
So, when each person feels like they are working towards the advancement of their career, the little stresses of day to day work doesn’t seem so challenging.
As a result, difficult days are better managed. Once each person is focused on obtaining their personal career goal, they will not become negative and can carry on with their jobs effectively.
6) Encourage Positivity
Most workplaces often get caught up on being negative. They usually talk about what didn’t work as opposed to what did work.
So, you should seek to actively change that conversation and focus on the positive. This doesn’t mean that you should ignore the unpleasant events, but make more emphasis on the good.
7) Help The local Community Together
You should always strive to try and give back to your community or the world at large. You should make this into a company-wide initiative and do so with your employees.
You can start by taking a poll to find out what community services your workers are interested in and care about.
Then, you can work out how everyone in your organization can contribute to accomplishing these tasks as a team.