Employee dissatisfaction and a bad workplace environment compromise your company’s performance in multiple ways. It reduces workplace performance, lowers employee morale, and boosts your turnover rate. Consequently, it may impact your company’s results and harm customer experiences.
Here are six proven tips that will help you boost your company’s culture.
Provide and Solicit Feedback
Annual performance reviews are not enough to help your employees improve and grow.
Ideally, provide weekly or monthly feedback. Create data-driven employee performance reports, where you will emphasize your staff members’ strengths and weaknesses. That way, you will help them grow professionally, help them understand your expectations, and improve workplace performance.
Collecting employee feedback is also vital. For example, creating employee engagement surveys is an effective way to measure how motivated your staff is to perform their best every day. Always ask meaningful questions to get relevant employee feedback. That way, you will know where to make corrections to improve the workplace environment.
Encourage a Team Atmosphere Environment
Your employees and teams should not operate in isolation.
To boost the workplace environment, you need to eliminate the silo mentality. Instead of working toward individual goals, your people should behave as a unified team. That will boost workplace productivity and agility. Your employees will be more satisfied, collaborate effectively, and meet deadlines faster.
To improve a team atmosphere, promote employee collaboration and teamwork. That is especially important during the Coronavirus pandemic when most businesses have shifted to remote work. Encourage employee collaboration and communication in a remote workplace to maintain positive company culture. When you achieve that, as a business owner, you`ll feel free to take some time off, and even travel while working, because you`ll know that you can rely on your team.
Shift to Remote Work
Since the outbreak of Coronavirus, many companies have shifted to remote work. Work-from-home policies can boost the workplace environment in multiple ways.
It is more flexible, allowing your staff to balance private and professional lives. That will boost the overall employee satisfaction and productivity. According to statistics, 77% of telecommuters report being more productive.
However, building a remote workplace also comes with numerous concerns. One of them is employee communication and workplace transparency.
To boost employee productivity, you need to equip your staff with the right technology solutions. For example, invest in a cloud-based document management system that will allow your staff to access documents 24/7. Above all, have team communication tools that provide real-time employee communication via multiple channels and devices.
Recognize and Reward Employees
Businesses that recognize employees have a significantly lower turnover rate. Statistics back me up on that. Namely, employees who do not feel recognized are twice as likely to leave a job in a year.
That is why you should incentivize your employees regularly. For example, you could identify specific behaviors and goals that align with your company’s goals and values and reward them.
Most importantly, keep your rewards program employee-friendly. For instance, make it possible for workers to recognize their peers. Peer recognition builds stronger relationships between your employees and strengthens company culture.
Improve Office Design
The design of your offices impacts employee behaviors, emotions, and performance. To boost the overall appeal of your workplace, focus on comfort. Your employees spend most of their waking hours working. Therefore, the workplace environment as pleasant as possible. For example, invest in ergonomic furniture, create a leisure room, and have a functional kitchen with some of the best kitchen gifts there are.
Colors and lighting can also impact the mood in the workplace. Choose colors that are pleasing to the eye and that do not distract your employees. For example, blue and green are associated with creativity, stability, and innovation. Studies have shown that red can also improve concentration.
Finally, keep your offices well-lit. The lack of lighting may cause fatigue, headaches, and tiredness. So, make sure your employees have enough natural light. Also, add greenery to the office to boost employees’ mood and mental health.
Promote Employee Independence
Your employees do not want to be micromanaged at work. Apart from being highly inefficient, this practice also indicates that you do not trust your employees enough.
That is why you should prove you value your staff by inspiring their independence. For example, establish autonomous work teams, motivate employees to make decisions, and provide work flexibility.
By taking on new responsibilities and undertaking fresh initiatives, your employees will be more satisfied and productive.
Over to You
Building a friendly and productive work environment requires continuous investments and improvements. Sure, there is no one-size-fits-all rule to apply. You need to evaluate your company culture and adapt those tips accordingly. Each of these initiatives should be in line with your organization and people.