Taking care of your employees is an important part of your role as a business owner. So much depends on the quality of the work your staff produce, and the productivity levels they attain, that to neglect their welfare is to do your business a serious disservice. You need to have good communication channels and be an approachable boss who is a good leader and demonstrates how much you value your workers. You need to provide them with all the equipment and facilities they need to perform their job, and you must give them the financial and emotional incentives that motivate them to do their best for you. In addition to these requirements, you need to provide them with a pleasant working environment.
What makes a pleasant physical environment?
Essentially the same requirements you’d have in your home – comfortable surroundings, access to restrooms, and break spaces with facilities for making drinks; good air quality, a comfortable temperature, not too much noise, and for everything to be clean, bright and fresh. Take a look at your office space and see if it is fulfilling all these requirements. If not, you need to take steps to change and improve the environment. Cleaning needs to be done regularly and thoroughly, and using a specialist company such as Service by Medallion to provide your commercial cleaning services will ensure your office is spick and span at all times. Look at the layout of the workstations and consider how they might be rearranged to create a better configuration. Check that you have everything your staff needs in the way of drink and food making facilities, rest areas, and well-equipped bathrooms. Then look at the equipment the employees use and make sure it is all fit for purpose and that they have access to ergonomic chairs and aids such as wrist supports and footrests.
Creating a pleasant ambiance
The physical surroundings will go a long way towards making the office a pleasant place to work. However, to have a truly pleasant environment, you need to make sure there is a friendly atmosphere and no interpersonal relationship issues. You should be talking to your staff anyway, to maintain good communications concerning their work, but also any issues in their lives that could be affecting them. You also need to observe your employees and develop a sense for when the atmosphere is not so good. Even amongst colleagues who get along well, conflicts are bound to arise at some point, and you need to be able to identify where there is a problem and step in to address it. It’s far better to take the situation in hand than hope it will clear up without your intervention. Many issues can be resolved fairly easily if tackled at the start, but if left to fester may turn into more serious problems, and create an atmosphere that affects all the employees.
If your employees have a pleasing, welcoming office where they feel comfortable, both physically and psychologically, they will repay you with excellent standards of work and high productivity levels. That makes the process of appraising and improving your workplace more than justified.