Creating a positive workplace environment is a golden opportunity for growing businesses. Happy employees are high-performing ones. Think about it: when was the last time you produced amazing work when you were overwhelmed, overstimulated, and plain frazzled? Therefore, business success can be garnered if you take the time to meet employee needs through the organizational culture.
For many, this business growth opportunity remains unlocked because they don’t know where to start. The concept of a positive work environment seems too abstract and the rethinking and restructuring of several work processes seems unachievable for small businesses. On the list of things to do, a positive work culture doesn’t seem to have a clear enough win to make it a priority.
The bottom line is that a healthy work environment is both worthwhile and achievable for businesses big and small. We’ll show you how.
What Is a Positive Work Environment?
So what is this allusive positive environment businesses leaders are supposed to be building? Simply put, it is an environment where employees feel safe, comfortable, and motivated, empowering them to perform at their best. They’re excited to take part in their work tasks and report high job satisfaction. It tends to have certain characteristics including:
1. Work-Life Balance
The idea that the more hours employees work, the more successful the startup has long been proven wrong. Overworking leads to burnout and destroys employee morale. So the business’s leadership should avoid promoting long work hours and instead support the whole workforce to look after their well-being first.
2. Growth Opportunities
Invest in your employees and they will invest in you. So providing learning opportunities really pays off. With the pace of change, this doesn’t just mean providing training for upward mobility and re-skilling but keeping employees up to date with the technology that can support their current role.
3. High Employee Engagement
A company culture is made by the people within it. So employees should be given opportunities to communicate and collaborate with each other across departments and other boundaries. This boosts the sense of belonging, strengthens teamwork, and increases morale.
4. Productive Environment
A lot of people struggled with the work-from-home setup enforced by the pandemic because it wasn’t a productive environment for them. They couldn’t focus, be creative, or effectively use their skills. On the flip side, some people thrived. The physical environment your workforce experiences matters. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to creating a productive environment, but asking your employees for their input could prove worthwhile.
5. Honest Communication
As much as you work towards collaboration and teamwork, there will never be an absence of issues. Growing businesses are even more at risk of periods of high pressure. Open communication is essential to both overcoming hurdles and promoting growth because it creates a sense of trust, transparency, and belonging, which keeps team members on board and invested in achieving business outcomes.
Positive Work Environment: 6 Business Growth Benefits
Business leaders have a give-and-take relationship with their employees. Businesses pay employees for their skills, expertise, and effort. To achieve substantial growth, the exchange needs to go deeper than that. Managers can’t expect employees to perform at their best without giving them the tools to do so.
The provision of the tools that will help employees to be happy, healthy, and on the ball doesn’t only benefit the workforce but has a massive payoff for the business as a whole. Some notable benefits for the organization include:
1. Increased Employee Engagement
Managers want their employees to be engaged with their work. The concept of quiet quitting is more than a social media trend. A healthy work environment improves the employee experience so they will want to engage and produce good work because they are invested in the success of the company.
2. Increased Retention Rates
Yes, employees leave because of personal circumstances and wanting a change. They also leave because they are unhappy. No one wants to put up with an emotionally draining and exhausting job where they don’t feel appreciated. On the other hand, employees that are looked after are naturally loyal.
3. Decreased Turnover Rates
Constantly looking for new hires is disruptive, especially for small businesses where unfulfilled roles leave a bigger gap. Team members have to adjust to the changing dynamics as people come and go. New employees take time to onboard and settle in before they can produce their best work. Plus, it’s not good for a company’s reputation if its employee turnover is high. Employees need incentives to stay. Actually enjoying their job is a big incentive.
4. Increased Productivity
Small teams can be the most productive teams because when we feel good, we produce good work. So avoiding stress, overwhelm, and dissatisfaction through a healthy environment is essential to fostering a high-performing workforce. If you want to get the most out of the people in your company, work on employee happiness.
5. Incentivized Collaboration and Innovative Solutions to Problems
Not all businesses have the capacity for specific innovation initiatives. Fortunately, the nature of a positive work environment naturally leads to collaboration and innovation because instead of having managers on their backs about meeting seemingly meaningless deadlines, employees are given the opportunity to engage in teamwork and creativity. When encouraged, collaboration and innovation can become part of company culture.
6. Increased Talent Attraction
Increasingly, employees aren’t just looking for a good salary but a good environment that will make working at the company a pleasant experience. Today’s workforce is very aware of toxic corporate cultures. That means that small businesses can forge an advantage compared to the big name brands. A strong work environment is very attractive to top talent, particularly if there are tangible initiatives that can be named in the hiring process.
How to Promote a Positive Work Environment
Introducing initiatives that create a happy workplace is a win-win situation. Employees enjoy their work more and the business benefits from the resulting higher performance. To reap these benefits, comprehensive strategies need to be formulated and followed through. Surface-level programs aren’t enough to break through toxicity and build a positive company culture. Here are some best practices for creating a positive workplace environment.
1. Be willing to rethink and optimize the workflow and workload.
In a positive work environment, everyone’s perspective is valued. That means all employees are given a level of freedom over how they manage their workload and keep up with the workflow of the business. As we have experienced in the past couple of years, remote work is good for some while counterproductive for others. A hybrid work environment gives people the power of choice. Additionally, employees can be given freedom over their work hours. The Monday to Friday 9-5 model has been disproven by trials of a 4-day work week, so clearly flexibility is beneficial.
2. Avoid micromanaging and encourage macromanaging.
Employees aren’t going to feel comfortable in the workplace unless they believe they have autonomy and are trusted by the senior team. Micromanaging destroys the relationship between workers as employees feel like they aren’t given the chance to do what they were hired to do.
Train managers to replace micromanaging with macromanaging—which is the complete opposite. Employees are still monitored and managed while having the freedom to do their job as they see fit. Everyone has a different working style and ways that work best for them. When employees are given ownership of projects and achieve success, they build confidence which improves levels of happiness and performance.
3. Come up with attractive core values.
As humans, we want to do something meaningful. We want to belong to a community that stands for something and is making a difference. Share what that is for your company by writing and distributing a company mission and core values. This defines what the business is working towards and how it is being achieved. These should be inspiring in order to unite the workforce under a common goal.
4. Be willing to listen and take feedback.
One of the core elements of an empowering workplace is open communication. This means lines of communication go both ways. Employees are given direction and ways to improve while being able to voice their experiences and see that feedback is being acted on. Recognizing and validating concerns is important to employee retention. Human resources can act as a go-between to ensure feedback flows freely.
5. Consider offering training opportunities.
A strong team is made up of strong individuals. Professional development is another initiative that benefits both the individual employee, to progress and feel fulfilled, and the company as they create and maintain top talent. Upskilling and re-skilling create employee happiness and business growth opportunities.
6. Be willing to hold managers accountable.
Dissatisfaction spreads across the workforce when employees feel like they are treated unfairly. While every organization needs a structure, a company hierarchy that creates an ‘us vs them’ mentality is really toxic. This means the managers should be expected to abide by company values and add to the positive work culture. Intervention should be made if this doesn’t happen.
7. Rethink hiring processes to attract more talent.
To foster a team that embraces the work culture you want to build, you need to hire with the work environment in mind. Who would work well within the team? Who has demonstrated your company values? Who is excited to work towards your mission?
Look beyond professional qualifications and experience to the characteristics of the employees that will add to the workplace experience. Then translate this into the hiring process such as the job description and interview questions. Plus, it can shape the onboarding process when new hires are brought in.
8. Create opportunities for collaboration.
A collaborative work environment is a high-performing work environment as the team problem-solves and innovates among themselves. It also meets the human need to socialize. The workplace should be designed to enable collaboration. This could be as simple as introducing coworking areas to the workspace, or more organized like creating an innovation hub.
Building a Positive Work Environment: 8 Ideas
There are practical steps business leaders can take to intentionally build a positive work environment. Consider implementing some of these changes to support your own workplace and build momentum towards a healthy environment.
1. Take care of employees’ mental health.
A positive work environment can’t flourish without employee well-being support. Businesses have a duty to look after their staff, especially if they want the best out of them and to have a forward-moving team. Employees should feel comfortable reaching out for help and the business should be set up to support them as needed.
2. Host company events.
To build a strong team, colleagues should be given the opportunity to interact in non-work-focused situations. This allows them to create meaningful relationships with people inside and outside their department. Company events are also an opportunity to thank employees for their hard work and show genuine appreciation.
3. Ensure proper workplace ergonomics.
The company’s workspace should complement the positive work environment being built. The design of the office matters. Consider practical changes according to the needs of everyone in the workforce. Then, consider a design that could improve productivity and teamwork. The traditional office cubicles might not cut it for your workforce. An open plan setup that encourages hot desking might be better. You might invest in additional office equipment like standing desks. Remember to make provisions for remote or hybrid workers too. What support could be given to improve their work environment?
4. Train leaders/managers to be supportive.
Focusing on building a positive work environment is innately employee-centric. This is a relatively new approach to running a business. In the past decades, managers have been trained in a business-focused approach that prioritizes profit over people. Therefore, the leaders in your team will need to be retrained to embrace and roll out an employee-centric approach. Make sure to give managers the guidance they need to bring your ideal workplace to life.
5. Create safe spaces for employees to talk about their concerns.
Problems that could disrupt the work culture can be nipped in the bud through open lines of communication. Employees need to feel safe to come forward. So instead of leaving one-on-ones for audits and other official matters, make it a habit. Schedule consistent opportunities that encourage safe-space discussions. It gives employees an opportunity to speak up and sends the message they will be listened to.
6. Establish clear job expectations.
For employees to act in a way that is both productive and positive, they need guidance. By setting expectations early on, employees work with clarity and understanding of what they need to do and the KPIs they need to meet. On top of this, setting job expectations is a perfect opportunity to introduce the company’s mission and core values. When given the necessary support and tools, employees thrive.
7. Promote and celebrate diversity.
Building a diverse workplace sends the message that everyone is welcome, increasing the sense of safety for employees. It also strengthens the team because people with different perspectives bring different insights. Assumptions are more likely to be challenged and new ways of achieving success are explored.
8. Pay it forward.
There is no better way to bring the workforce together in a non-work situation than backing a good cause. Choose a charity or organization that aligns with your values and then come up with fun employee-led ideas for how to support that cause, from sponsored events to volunteer days. We are motivated to work together when we know we are making an impact.
Keep Growing Your Business
Creating a positive work environment is an important piece of the puzzle of business growth. However, it is only one piece of the puzzle. When a strong company culture has been built, other growth opportunities can be explored.
For example, are your marketing efforts garnering maximum results? Is your website actually benefiting your business? Could you be getting more reviews? Podium is your go-to for small business growth. Our toolkit can help you to connect with customers via text marketing, gather more leads via Webchat, collect online reviews, and more. What’s the next step for your business growth?
