Home  »  Help and Advice for Employers   »   How To Create a Great Place to Work

How To Create a Great Place to Work

Array

Have you ever wondered, “What does it take to create a great place to work?”

The workplace is a huge factor that determines an organization’s productivity and ultimately, profitability.

Some CEOs, for example Elon Musk, boss of Tesla and Twitter, insists on having staff in the office.

Others are happy to have staff working in a hybrid system.

Whatever the system is, it’s important to create an environment where staff are relaxed and can do their best work.

For example, if your office is dusty and freezing in the winter and boiling hot in the summer, are you going to get the best out of your staff?

READ MORE: How To Boost Staff Productivity

Who is in Charge of Creating a Great Workplace?

It takes a real team effort to create a great place to work.

You could have the plushest, most modern office with a range of perks on offer for staff.

However, if a person or people don’t behave as they should, it can make the entire environment toxic.

Primarily, it’s the responsibility of the business leaders to ensure this doesn’t happen – but sometimes they are the cause.

It’s important not to sit and get stressed out by the behavior of others, and if you have an issue, speak to your manager or HR team.

Keep it Interesting

Managers can face a tough task keeping staff motivated, but making the effort to create a great place to work is one to do this.

Most roles contain aspects which can be dull.

For example creating and maintaining very large spreadsheets would be on very few people’s lists of things they look forward to.

Employees want to be satisfied with their work, and people seem happy when they are doing things they enjoy, ones that did satisfy how much they value.

If staff have enough of their work they enjoy, they won’t mind the odd bit of work that’s a bit tedious.

However, everyone is unique and has different values.

Almost all of us have some distinguishing feature that sets us apart.

Appealing to all, or even the majority, is a difficult task that so often confounds even the most powerful in terms.

People are driven to do their best, and when they do their best, they are happier.

Work on short and long-term goals

Despite what many have believed at one moment or another, accomplishing important short and long-term goals is not what makes us feel good.

True enjoyment is found on the journey to the goal.

It’s those moments when you’re working together and bouncing ideas, and getting excited about what you could achieve.

Or it’s when you finally find a way around an issue that’s holding everything up.

The business leaders can do what they can to create a great environment, but it’s essentially down to you to make the most of it in your work.

Here’s How to Create a Great Place to Work

Here are some things to consider when you’re looking at creating a great place to work

• Give staff feedback – People like praise, but also like to know how they can improve.
• Discuss problems – People like the challenge of overcoming problems and the satisfaction that comes with it.
• Give employees flexibility – Time is as valuable for some people as money is. Make sure staff can get time away if they need it.

• Look at a four-day week – Trials have proved staff can be more productive working a shorter week and people will be more energised if they know they’re getting more time off.

• Be accountable – Creating a company culture or environment that promotes personal accountability is a positive step. If you make a mistake it’s much better to own it and work through it than to deny it or to try to blame someone else. Good leaders will work to reduce the chance of it happening again rather than shouting and screaming.

• Establish Trust: People today do not believe their leaders because they talk a lot but do not follow through on their promises. Sitting down and listening is the best way build up trust in your organisation. Leaders who listen are more highly regarded and considered reliable than those who rarely listen and think they know best.

Some more tips

• Celebrate as a team – Finished a project? Won a deal? Go for a team evening out. At the same time, people will greatly appreciate it if you take the time to acknowledge their individual contributions to the company’s success.

• Job satisfaction – Every workforce has people that are not satisfied with their jobs. They’re either bored, lack the skills to do the job properly or stressed out. Whatever the reason is, try to work through it with the person concerned.

• Pay -It seems obvious, but staff will be happier if they’re well paid.

• Work/life balance – The cost of overwork is massive. People under pressure are likely to make more errors. Absenteeism is said to cost the US economy $300 billion a year.

• Anger Management: Anger is the most common emotion in the workplace, and it destroys more people and things than we can imagine.

• Responsiveness: Many organizations are good at wanting to know what people want but far less good at acting on their request

Communication is the Key to Creating a Great Place to Work

Did you realize the most successful companies or businesses frequently have excellent workplace communication?

This serves as the foundation for any profitable and efficient business.

Employees who communicate effectively are not distracted by drama or gossip.

Instead, with open communication, employees will collaborate as a team to resolve issues and enjoy each other’s company.

Open communication among all employees is not something that happens by chance in the workplace.

Achieving an ethos of open communication in any business takes effort.

If your workplace communication could use a boost, there are a few steps that can be taken to improve this critical aspect of your business.

Take the pressure off

When it comes to things like communication , businesses sometimes work best when they take the pressure off.

Instead of a tense meeting about business communications, host a relaxed social event.

Approaching workplace communication with such a casual level of attention may seem counter-intuitive, but it can be one of the most efficient ways to convey your point to your employees.

Employees usually do not benefit when their boss lectures or yells at them, particularly in areas such as workplace communication.

Instead, try hosting a social hour for employees at your home.

READ MORE: The Importance Of An Employee Onboarding System

This may be the only nuanced cue you must employ in order to demonstrate to staff members that users care about maintaining a positive social environment at workplace.

A social hour only needs to last a couple of hours and is a great time for workers to unwind and be open about how those who feel about the company.

Arranging a get-together could indeed add to the relaxed atmosphere of the social hour. A social get-together does have an inviting warmth which will make every worker feel accepted to the event, irrespective of any office gossip or rumors.

Hosting a social hour can almost generate the fresh buzz your business may want in its workplace communication section.

Creating the High-Performance Workplace

Organizations go to great lengths to hire the best and brightest, but how many are proactive in managing those very same people to ensure they have the eco-systems they need to perform at their peak?

People don’t leave companies; they leave people.

Whether it’s colleagues, managers, or a combination, the end result is the same: an economic loss of human capital and the possibilities those employees represented.

Managers can avoid these losses by creating a great place to work that brings the greater good in everyone, allowing a highly efficient synergy to emerge.

By mastering the eight steps outlined in this article, you can establish a “workplace ecology” for your employees that promotes a higher level of performance and greater feat in the twenty-first century.

The Following 6 Steps Will Help Create a Great Place to Work

• Create a mutually respectful environment in which everyone feels accepted and can participate fully.
• Work on your leadership skills. People will be hugely responsive if they know they’ve got a boss who will go to any length to help them succeed.
• Be open and willing to share information. When people understand what’s going on, they can make extra contributions.
• Before making a decision, seek out as many viewpoints and points of view as possible from people who will be affected by the decision-making.
• Workers are more open to other people’s ideas when they believe their opinions have been heard and taken into account.
• To keep your employees sharp and engaged, offer them variety, learning opportunities, and challenging work that meets their needs.

Finally, and most importantly, don’t take yourself too seriously- have fun!

Life is too brief to just survive; instead, strive to thrive!

Staff usually like someone with a sense of humor and the ability to enjoy a joke is key to creating a great place to work.

Related Articles