One of the biggest contributors to employee dissatisfaction is their work environment. Whether you like it or not, team culture will be what differentiates your company from the rest when it comes to employee loyalty. Managers must make building a healthy work environment a priority in order to keep the business running successfully.
You’ll have to get creative and put a bit of extra energy to help foster a great team culture.
Create a great team culture in your own office
Employees might admit to their friends and family that they don’t completely love the environment they’re in. Managers should consider how to create a low turnover rate and make the people working for you feel appreciated. This is why you’ll want to create a dedicated plan for boosting your team culture.
Team culture is defined as the structure that lets team members participate in the company and understand where they fit in. Some companies aim to be quirky and weird. Others want to create a work environment where everyone comes into work feeling like they own the place.
It all depends on what works best for your company and your target audience. After all, your business culture is a statement to your employees and customers about what you believe is important in a company
To help you create a healthy work environment, you may want to try the following methods.
Keep things fun and fresh
One of the major problems that employees run into is boredom.
Regardless of how much they love what they do, it’s still possible for employees to get bored of coming to work every day. You can prevent this problem by creating a fun and fresh work environment.
If your industry allows, let your colleagues work from home a few days a month. You can also schedule lunches, or potlucks, to encourage team bonding in the office. Anything that you can do to make things exciting in your office should be considered in order to prevent boredom.
Create a great looking space
Chances are that your team spends more time in the office than they do at home. Since you’ve already worked hard to establish a team that works well together, you’ll need to make the office a space they actually want to be in.
To create a healthy work environment, it’s important to make your office feel as much like a second home as possible. Anything from switching out bright, white bulbs to yellow tinted ones can change the entire feel of your office. From there, you can update chairs and desks throughout the space.
If you want to take things a step further, you could ask your employees if they’d prefer a standing desk or if they want something quirky like a pool table available in the workspace.
Support collaboration
Another great way to build a healthy team culture within your company is to continually support collaboration.
Competition can be a great motivator in the workplace. However, it’s important to make sure that you are fostering a healthy work environment. People should be able to work together without feeling like they must sabotage each other.
Create open workspaces that allow people to move their computers into a comfortable corner to finish up a project. Some managers have created casual meeting rooms that employees can take over whenever they want to.
Your employees will enjoy the benefits of a great team culture that allows them to get excited about working with a colleague.
Schedule team building activities
The benefits of team building activities for remote workers are clear. These activities, however, are extremely important for in-office teams as well.
To make people feel comfortable at work, they’ll need to be comfortable with the people around them. If someone feels anxious around a certain person, it’ll be reflected in their work quality. Eventually, coworkers who aren’t connected to each other can become overly competitive or withdraw from the team as a result.
Once or twice a year, schedule team training that focuses on updating everyone’s skills. These group activities can also be a less-formal way to hang out and work together. You may also schedule team outings or events. Some companies will join with a volunteer group or charity to try new things as a team and give to a good cause.
Promote open communication
Promoting open communication is one of the major factors attributed to a business’s success. When developing a great team culture, it’s important that you’re building on a foundation of communication.
For example, if your team grabs a drink every Friday afternoon, make sure that others feel welcome to recommend non-alcoholic options. As a manager, you should consider the possible points of friction while developing your business’s work environment.
For open communication to be a part of your team culture, everyone must understand how to interact with each other. Constructive criticism and feedback should be delivered politely and effectively to keep everyone working tension-free. Employees should feel supported by their team, so giving thanks to coworkers is a good habit to start.
Stay observant
The final tip to building a great team culture is to stay observant.
It’s the job of the business owner and manager to make sure that employees stay happy. There’s no need to play the blame game or ignore employee needs if you are open to changing the environment as needed.
If you hear employees talking about how their chairs are hurting their backs, look into replacing them to keep people comfortable. When another employee makes a suggestion for an event, consider what they have to say.
You may not need to continually make big changes to your work environment, but employees will always appreciate working for a company that is there to support them.
Go ahead and reap the rewards of a healthy team culture
It’s important to keep in mind that every company is different. Even if you work in an industry like tech, where it seems like every company has its own quirks, it doesn’t mean that your company needs to fit into that mold. Always consider your ideal employee and their needs, just as much as you consider what kind of team your target customers will want to work with.
Create a healthy work environment that stops tensions from rising and recognizes its star players. As you figure out what works best, remember that communication and collaboration are the keys to the overall success of your office.