A toxic workplace is a perfect recipe for employee burnout and a high turnover rate, costing an organization loads of money. After all, hiring, training, and on-boarding new hires have their corresponding costs. If you keep doing them because your employees leave their posts faster than you can say “promotion,” those expenses add up.
Before you know it, you’ve unnecessarily spent an amount you could’ve funneled into core business functions like product development.
Luckily, an effective antidote to employee burnout is a healthy workplace environment. It has a simple rule of thumb: protect your employees’ mental health in the workplace. Caring for your employees creates a happy, creative, and productive team. More importantly, it encourages employees to stick with your organization for the long haul.
How to Create a Positive and Healthy Workplace
If you’re wondering how to encourage and maintain a winning workplace culture, you’ve come to the right place. Read on for tips you could execute in your organization as soon as possible.
1. Promote work-life balance
You often hear the phrase “work-life balance” from HR pundits when they talk about employee retention. That’s understandable, given how it truly affects an employee’s level of job satisfaction. It’s high time you prioritize work-life balance in your organization, too.
You can promote work-life balance in your organization in many ways. For instance, you can shift to a hybrid work setup for employees whose regular physical presence at the office is not essential. You may set up a remote work arrangement for your organization.
2. Encourage open communication
Employees can resolve internal issues if they talk to each other with honesty and open-mindedness. That said, it’s crucial to encourage open communication within your organization.
Let your team members know they can share concerns with HR or their direct superior. That covers any mental or psychological distress they might be going through.
However, it should not end there. Ensure you have existing policies dictating how to deal with different employee situations, like if one is experiencing depression. Will you allow them to avail of a paid sick leave? Get the fine print ready.
3. Initiate team engagements
It’s common practice among organizations to have team-building activities. These off-work sessions allow employees to build camaraderie and get to know each other more intimately. However, some organizations make the mistake of staging team-building activities only when trouble’s in the offing, which shouldn’t be the case.
The goal is to have your team participate in stress-free activities that will allow them to loosen up and get friendly with each other. You should schedule these activities regularly. You should also supplement them with simpler team engagement initiatives like hour-long pizza parties at the pantry or virtual movie nights.
While you’re expected to invest in these projects, rest assured that the returns will be worth every penny you spend.
4. Appreciate your employees
People have long languages at work the same way they have with their personal relationships. For instance, some employees are more responsive to appreciation. That said, you can’t be stingy with praise and recognition at work.
Whenever you can, acknowledge your employees for their hard work. After all, it won’t take too much time and effort to give your employees a pat on the back. Recognizing your employees for their efforts may encourage them to do better at work. They’ll know they’ll be heard, seen, and appreciated in whatever they do.
5. Foster trust
Fostering trust is one of the most crucial entries in this list. A work environment cannot be considered healthy if it consists of people who secretly distrust each other. Such a scenario is the perfect breeding ground for gossip and backstabbing. In a professional setup, that’s the most toxic you can get.
So, how can you foster trust? Begin from the top. A culture of trust should cascade from the board of trustees down to the middle management and rank-and-file employees. For colleagues of equal rank to trust each other, leaders must primarily manifest a sense of responsibility and accountability themselves.
6. Create career paths
There’s nothing more frustrating than spending years in an organization without knowing what’s in it for you other than the bi-monthly salary wired to your account. Yes, loyalty must be rewarded. After all, it’s a scarce commodity in a time of quiet quitting and the “Great Resignation.”
One way to recognize loyalty is by offering employees a clear developmental track. That is done via a culture of promotion that’s transparent and inclusive. Without setting career paths, your workplace will be rife with burnout.
7. Offer competitive remuneration
While it’s mentioned earlier that people respond to different love languages at work, the fact that we need funds to survive cannot be overstated. As such, even if you’ve surveyed your entire team about their love language and you find that they prefer verbal recognition, be generous as you can with remuneration.
Ensure that you pay employees based on their skills, knowledge, performance, and potential. Pair promotions with attractive compensations so your employees will feel more motivated to work hard and stay in your organization.
A well-paid team is an inspired team. In turn, an inspired team will get work done in a timely and excellent manner, creating a productive organization that hits business goals left and right.
No Better Time to Create a Healthy Workplace Than Today
Every workplace consists of employees with different values and priorities outside their chosen profession. However, when going to work, they need to forget their differences and work as a team towards a common goal.
Such can only materialize if your employees share healthy work relationships with each other, which is something management cannot force. Instead, that’s a byproduct of a healthy workplace culture.
A healthy workplace environment is not something you achieve overnight. For starters, it must be anchored to clear, non-discriminatory policies. Moreover, it requires consistency and dedication. You cannot choose which days you want the office to be a safe and work-conducive environment and which days you allow toxicity.
Working toward a winning workplace culture entails daily cultivation. While that sounds challenging, take comfort in the fact that the rewards will be amazing.
Punit