Blog: The 7 core attributes for creating a healthy work environment
Insights into how your employees are affected by the culture at their places of work!
We spend a huge amount of our adult life at our workplaces. It is estimated that an average human spends one third of her time at work. I have come across many people who have left jobs, changed careers or had mental breakdowns after traumatic workplace experiences. At the same time, we have companies like Microsoft or Google and many similar ones where people stay back for decades, grow and flourish and admit to having been enriched by the work place environment.
So, what differentiates the former from the latter group?
It is not one but many attributes that make a workplace healthy or toxic. Work culture is not about missing a deadline on a project and getting fired by the boss or even missing a promotion. It is also not about a great afterwork party that makes you feel great. It is not what one feels on a particular day but a cumulative effect of many factors that influence the long-term mental, emotional and physical wellbeing of an employee.
A positive work culture attracts talented employees, engages and retains them and can extract optimal productivity from them while keeping them happy and contented. The management of the company, the people who are the decision-makers or leaders, policies and practices and peer group are some of the key factors that affect the work culture.
Here goes few of the crucial areas to look into to make your company to be perceived and experienced as a safe workplace by your employees, devoid of any toxicity:
The vision, mission and goals of the company – The purpose of the business, the achievements it aspires to manage, the impact of the business on the larger world should all be clear in your mind and communicated clearly to the employees. They need to understand the part they are expected to play on all these as well. That is when a sense of ownership takes root in their minds and a feeling that they have contributed to the growth arises among them. The company should give active support in translating the broad vision of the company as specific individual goals for the employees.
Hiring, on-boarding, compensation and performance management methodology – It is better and easier to hire staff who are aligned to the company’s vision and mission than trying to do unplanned hiring in the hope to train them. The personality, behaviour, values, beliefs, skills and background have an important role in creating a positive work culture. The compensation packages, performance reviews, training and development plans, benefits, leave rules, measures to ensure work life balance etc needs to be drawn up and reviewed keeping in line with good Human resources practices.
Finer details of everyday functioning both in and out of work place – Things like work hours, flexibility offered in terms of working from home, dress code, code of conduct, reporting hierarchy codes, creature comforts at work that ensures physical well-being, employee engagement involving families outside work hours are all factors that can be looked into for creating a conducive work environment. Efforts made at the nascent stages of the organization helps in building a strong culture base.
Transparency and quality of communication – The frequency, transparency and the caliber of communication matters a lot in how the employee is made to feel. There are three main communication hierarchies in an organization which are boss to team member, team member to boss and peer to peer. The code of communication must be watertight with complete clarity on expectations when it comes to sharing of information by all three stakeholders.
Sensitivity displayed towards the mental well-being – While work is of great importance to employees, there would be phases in their lives when personal things need close attention and more priority. The sensitivity shown by the employer in these situations has a huge impact on the mental health of the employee and his loyalty to the organization. As a general rule, an organization which shows empathy towards the personal challenges of employees as well as makes the environment favourable for an optimal work life balance will see better employee retention. It gives them a feeling of community.
Fairness in opportunity and pay – Organizations which offer equal opportunity and have a fair pay ethic would see less attrition rate among employees. The feeling of being dealt with fairness is a basic human desire. Fairness in compensation and promotions invariably leads to a feeling of pride in being associated with the organization that employs them. Pride coming from a sense of belonging motivates people for better performance as well.
Environment that promotes trust, innovation and feedback- Trust develops when employees can fearlessly express ideas, gets the credit for the good ones and gets constructive feedback for the not so good ones. An environment that fosters innovation and trust makes employees feel safe and gives an impetus for freedom of expression. This has a vital role in the work culture framework. As they say, ‘If you consider someone trustworthy, most probably prove you right.”
Inversely, some of the traits that could create a toxic work environment which needs to be watched out for are the following:
- Directionless leadership and management
- Bad communication
- Not having a vision, mission or goals
- Confusion, chaos and lack of clarity with regard to responsibilities and roles
- Gossip culture and personal biases affecting professional relationships
- Mistrust among colleagues and superiors
- Poor work life balance and lack of boundaries
- Lack of empathy
- Inequality and lack of pay parity
- Partisan treatment, bullying and harassment
- Crippling sense of fear of failure among employees
- Long phases of lack of energy and enthusiasm
- High attrition and employee turnover rates
One of the most important roles a leader has is creating a positive and inspiring business culture. It is not only the best but also the simplest way to get your employees to invest their energy and future with you and your company. If you are looking for some help in doing that, we would love to assist you with defining the points of culture that relates and fits you and your business. Please write to us at harish@harishrao.world for more details on our culture definition workshops.