How To Improve The Culture In Your Workplace If it's Toxic
Photo by @bermixstudio
When there is a lot of defensiveness and argumentativeness among colleagues, it can be difficult to create a cohesive and supportive work environment. Here are some possible solutions:
Encourage open communication by providing opportunities for people to share their ideas and opinions in a non-judgmental setting. Encourage active listening and give everyone a chance to speak.
Encourage teamwork and collaboration among colleagues by emphasizing the value and importance of everyone's contribution. Set team goals and celebrate victories as a group.
Constructive feedback: Be specific and focus on behaviors rather than personalities when providing feedback. To express how the behavior affected you and what you would like to see in the future, use "I" statements.
Address conflicts as soon as they arise: When conflicts arise, address them as soon as possible and as directly as possible. Encourage all parties to listen to one another and work together to find a solution that benefits everyone.
Lead by example: As a manager, model the behavior you want to see in your employees. Be considerate, open-minded, and approachable. Encourage your coworkers to follow suit.
Provide opportunities for training and development: Provide opportunities for training and development for your colleagues to improve their skills and boost their confidence. This can make them feel more confident in their roles and more willing to collaborate with others.
Remember that changing a workplace's culture takes time and effort. It is critical to be patient, persistent, and consistent in your efforts to foster a more cohesive and supportive workplace culture.
Why Quiet Quitting Is Important To Address
Photo source: Michael D. Levitt
Quiet Quitting isn't new. It's gone by different names such as "mailing it in", or "malicious compliance", or "sticking to the job description". The COVID-19 Pandemic has created opportunities for employees to reflect on their work life, and many have decided that they're being asked to do too much.
Signs of quiet quitting
Employees are taking their full breaks and not responding to emails/messages during their breaks or after hours. The always-on approach to work is burning people out, so people are tired for constantly being on the job.
Employees no longer are engaged in team meetings or in communication with their managers. Employees are giving short answers/responses to questions.
Employees are no longer laughing or bantering with colleagues. They're sticking to their desk and talk in a monotone voice.
Employees are taking more days off. This could be for interviews, or simply using their allocation of days to the fullest extent.
To reduce quiet quitting in your organization
Talk it out. Create an environment where employees and management can have open discussions about workloads and tasks. With the Great Resignation causing departures in companies, the work is getting piled onto the people that are left behind. It's not fair to those employees to carry the brunt of the extra work.
Take a long hard look at the work your company does. Look for efficiency opportunities and streamline unnecessary tasks. Be sure to involve employees in this study, as they're the ones doing the work.
Review your benefits packages and work schedules. People want flexibility and autonomy in their work roles. Extra compensation can help, but it's no longer the tool to entice people to work for your organization.
Flexibility and trust are.
Improving Staff Retention In Unusual Work Environments
Finding and retaining the best talent for your business is the key to success. No company can hope to survive long-term if they constantly struggle to keep staff on board.
Staff retention is a simple statistic that helps a business retain knowledge and expertise and reduce costs. Indeed, when staff resigns, a business must invest in recruitment and training. The process is not only costly, but it is also time-demanding and can significantly affect growth and overall survival. Perks such as healthcare benefits, ongoing training, and recognition can play a crucial role in keeping employees engaged in a typical office environment.
However, the typical staff retention strategy may not be effective in unusual work environments. Therefore, it becomes essential to consider new ideas to address employees' needs.
Provide tools for remote and on-the-go needs
Whether employees are on a business trip or prefer to work remotely, they need tools fit for the job. Contrary to common beliefs, remote equipment doesn't only include a laptop and a collaborative digital solution. On-the-go equipment can also help employees face unique and unexpected situations such as:
A doctor attending a conference could use a Philips lumify ultrasound device to help diagnose a fellow traveler
An IT developer traveling abroad could rapidly fix a damaging bug if they could access the database remotely
Ultimately, employees bring years of experience and knowledge. Being unable to use their knowledge outside the workplace is frustrating and can make them feel trapped.
Offer unlimited holiday allowance
How much holiday should a business offer? The answer is: It depends on the situation and the employees' needs. Unlimited paid vacations can be a source of stress for companies, as it is a difficult strategy to implement successfully. However, some businesses have been able to introduce irregular days off policies successfully, such as Netflix, LinkedIn, and GitHub. What difference does it make?
Employees who travel to visit relatives are not more torn between booking holidays for the family or for themselves
Employees with children can make sure they are available when kids are off school
Employees can recharge their batteries when they need to
Employees don't have to worry about sacrificing their paid vacations for non-holiday reasons (such as plumbing repair, doctor appointments, etc.)
Employees exposed to high-stress environments need more rest
Don't isolate specific individual needs
Every employee is different. Businesses often try to appeal to families by ensuring parents can work from home when the kids are sick or too young for school. However, these generous and understanding policies don't necessarily apply to single employees or those who have no family. As a result, employees who do not wish to have children may feel somewhat punished for their choices.
Similarly, employees with a long-term illness may receive more advantages than other employees in terms of work flexibility. Yet, it seems unfair to favor one specific population in the workplace. So, if businesses are willing to introduce benefits to retain category of employees, those benefits should apply to the entire workforce regardless of:
Gender
Age
Health
Location
Family status
Etc.
Employee retention is the ability to recognize the needs of the team and address those effectively. Consequently, it makes sense for businesses to research and identify what employees in a unique work environment crave, whether it is the ability to use their expertise anywhere or to have the same advantages as specific groups.
Improving Staff Retention Rates
When you start out in business, you tend to take on the vast majority of tasks yourself. You’ll operate as independently as possible to minimize outgoings and to maintain control over every element of your company. But as you begin to experience demand and success, you will ultimately need to bring a team on board to help you. The employees you need will depend on your business’ needs and preferences. They could range from customer service staff to graphic designers, web developers, and more. Of course, bringing staff on board can feel difficult, but the real challenge starts when it comes to keeping staff on board. This is called staff retention. Here’s some more information on the subject.
What Is Staff Retention?
Staff retention, or “employee retention” is your business's ability to retain its employees. Often, employee retention can be represented by a simple statistic. You may also hear people talk about staff retention in regards to a business's efforts to retain the employees in their workforce.
Why Is Staff Retention Important?
Staff retention helps save major business outgoings on recruitment. Finding and hiring new staff can be a costly process, as can training them when they startup. Good employee retention also helps to keep the cogs of your business turning smoothly, rather than constant handovers and people taking time to settle in and get to grips with the company’s ways.
Ways to Retain Staff
There are countless ways to retain staff in your workforce. The right options will depend on what your staff actually want and need. Here are a few suggestions that could give you some ideas that can help.
Healthcare
Many employees seek healthcare and support from their employers. It’s important that you provide your staff with healthcare benefits and dental plans to ensure they can maintain their health while working for you.
Up to Date Tools, Equipment, and Software
Having the best tools, equipment, and software can make your team’s lives easier for them. Sticking in the past and refusing to update your tech or simply refusing to pay for more modern features can make staff look elsewhere where their role will be made easier. Whether that’s project management software, a dental plan subscription platform, specific manufacturing machinery or anything else, make sure your staff has what they need.
Ongoing Training and Qualifications
Many staff is more likely to stay with a company if they are receiving training funded by the company. Offer various training courses or programs for your staff to enjoy. This will benefit your business anyway, as the skills they learn can be used to your company’s benefit.
Recognition
You should always recognize your staff members’ achievements. Feeling recognized and appreciated can go a long way when it comes to staff satisfaction levels. Easy ways to recognize your staff include bonuses, incentives or simply thanking them for their efforts.
Hopefully, some of the above information and recommendations can help you to maintain a happy staff base and keep your employees on board.
It's Time To Bring People Back To The Office
Are you eager to bring people back into the office to work in your business? This might be easier said than done as a lot of people have grown accustomed to working from home. Here are some of the key steps that you can take.
Be Flexible
First, you need to make sure that you are providing a high level of flexibility to your business team. This is one of the greatest benefits that people can take advantage of by freelancing or by working in a different company from your own. To improve levels of flexibility, you should think about looking at the work hours that you are providing to your team members. You might also want to think about making the office space itself more flexible. You can do this by adding key features such as sit-stand desks.
Put Safety Measures In Place
It’s important to put the right safety features in place if you want people to return to the office. One of the big benefits of working from home is that people don’t need to be around others in a shared space. This is important, particularly when you consider that a large number of individuals are still worried and nervous about COVID-19. There are various steps you can take to provide a safer space for your team. For instance, you can think about using sneeze guards for desk environments. These can be used in any area where people are sharing a workspace whether that’s a school or a typical company office.
Make It More Comfortable
Next, you should explore how to guarantee that people in your office are going to be more comfortable overall. If you look at the latest reports, you’ll see that the most common injury in American offices today is RSI or repetitive strain injury. This is caused by people working for long hours in the same position, often with the wrong posture. You can avoid problems here by investing in ergonomic furniture whether that’s office chairs or keyboards or other smaller pieces of equipment.
Listen To Their Feedback
Finally, it’s highly likely that your team members have their own ideas of things that they want to see or need to return to the typical office space. As such, you just need to listen to the feedback they provide. If you’re wondering how to get responses like this, then you may want to think about embracing an open-door policy. Alternatively, you could think about sending out a quick questionnaire to get the right feedback from your team overall. By showing your team that you are listening, you can guarantee that they feel like a more significant part of your business model, rather than simply another cog in the machine.
We hope this helps you understand some of the key steps that you can take to bring your team members back to the office. By exploring these possibilities, you can ensure that a space that may be costing you a fortune and adding to your business budget isn’t going to waste.
3 Effective Tips To Keep Your Employees Motivated
As a business owner, you probably know just how vital a motivated workforce is. If your employees are happy to be working with you, they will undoubtedly be highly productive.
Not only that, but contented employees are unlikely to quit working with you. A low employee turnover rate translates to more stability and predictability for your organization. Ultimately, this leads to improved performance and efficiency, which is excellent for your business.
If you have no idea how to inspire your employees, read on to find out how.
Empower Your Employees
As an employer, you want your employees to feel empowered. This makes them more confident, and it enhances their loyalty to your company.
The easiest way to empower a person is to show them that they matter. This means listening attentively to their ideas and acting on them. This is the attitude you need to adopt with your employees.
If an employee suggests that you allow people to work from home two days a week, consider the pros and cons of the suggestion first. If it makes sense to you, go ahead and actualize it. If not, inform the employee why you think the idea is not suitable for your company.
You can also show your employees that you value them by helping them in times of crisis. For instance, you can enlist the services of a private investigation company to protect an employee’s reputation. Providing them with health insurance and other benefits also shows that you care.
Consider also encouraging your employees to share the professional goals and dreams with you. Knowing their aspirations helps you mentor them better, which in turn improves their morale.
Create a Good Work Environment
Your employees will spend most of their waking hours in your business premises. If you want them to give their best every day, you need to make the work environment conducive.
Start by investing in quality furniture. This is particularly important if your employees will spend most of their time sitting. Having office chairs with ample back support can go a long way in boosting productivity.
You could also provide snacks and coffee to keep your employees full and active. Consider also having flowers to beautify the office space.
Other than the physical environment, you should create a supportive social environment. This means requiring that people communicate respectfully. It would be best if you also enacted a zero-tolerance policy to harassment and intimidation.
Encourage Teamwork
As the head of the organization, the duty to foster a team spirit falls squarely on your shoulders. You need to encourage your employees to work as a team for enhanced productivity.
If your team does not like working together, consider engaging in team-building activities. This can be something as simple as a game at a nearby soccer field. If your employees want to indulge in a more challenging task, you could also plan a hike to a far-off hiking trail.
Conclusion
Employees are a vital resource for any organization. As such, you ought to show them that you value and respect them. This goes a long way in motivating and inspiring them.
Fortunately, encouraging your employees is not difficult. Follow the tips on this post and watch the morale in your office improve.