When it comes to employees’ productivity and eliminating stressful atmosphere, a healthy workplace is the ideal solution for positive outcomes. The most important thing that has the greatest influence on the employee’s motivations and happiness is the healthy and positive workplace environment they work in.
As for a company, a healthy workplace environment is a great factor that leads to an increase in the company’s business sales, and increases employee productivity which in turn reduces absenteeism-related costs, medical claims, workers’ compensation, and turnover.
So here are some key tips to guarantee a healthy environment for employees.
1. Create a Comfortable Working Space
Although team members may work closely on projects, negative effects could happen sometimes. You need to find a way to create a positive and effective working space that is just the right size: small enough for everyone to work closely, but with enough room for everyone to work comfortably. Everyone needs their own space with the tools they need to reach the desired results, but still be able to work with other team members.
2. Use a Convenient Desk
A lot of health issues happen because of sitting for long periods of time, so a convenient and comfortable desk is a must. Many companies bring standing desks for their employees. These desks allow you to be able to sit or stand, where you can move around and keep your body active throughout the working day, and it’s not healthy to be on your feet all day as well. And if you have a traditional desk, remember to have a healthy balance of sitting and standing and to move around every once in a while.
3. Provide Clean Air
Having bad air in the workplace can make you lose concentration. Getting air purifiers is important to keep at various parts of the office which should have a HEPA filter to catch and filtrate dust particles in the air. This is an important way to create a better working environment.
4. Have Some Plants
Plants are good work colleagues. There are many ways that plants can help to create a healthier and more comfortable workplace environment. They help to improve the air quality. Also, plants make any area more comfortable, plants help to put you in a good mood. Too many plants can become overwhelming. Try to keep it to a couple of plants, one on your desk can have a very calming effect on you.
5. Keep the Team Bond
A connected team is a powerful team, even if there are remote workers on your team. It is not enough to just work on projects. You have to know one another to be able to establish a true productive working relationship. Find ways that your team can be better connected. If there are remote workers, use video conferencing where everyone can take part in meetings and sessions. Begin these meetings with ice-breaker activities. At each meeting, conference call, etc., you will learn more and more about each other and have a better connection which will help to improve the team’s productivity.
6. Urge Conflict
It’s good to have some healthy conflict within the team. This is how ideas are born. Offer up an idea that is completely new, and see where the discussion goes from this point. What might start as sounding weird could end up being the best idea you ever worked on.
7. Offer Rewards
To keep the spirit up and high, recognizing your team and offering rewards for project milestones is a one good way. Any project is interesting at first, however, it can become more difficult and boring with time. Set milestones, and offer rewards at each milestone when it is achieved. For example, you might send an email to tell the members how great they are performing, and that they have reached a milestone. Or maybe you can treat the team with lunch to celebrate the newly achieved milestone.
8. Assure Supportive Environment
Everybody has their personal problems and it is only human that personal emotions can get brought into the workplace. Try not to ignore them but instead, try to find the reason of the problem and be a supportive manager by showing concern. Your employee may come in to work depressed due to some personal issues, so try to show that you not only care about the company’s progress, but you also care about the well-being of your employee.
At the end, creating a healthy workplace environment doesn’t have to be costly or difficult, but it will have a great impact on team members’ productivity and loyalty to the company.
Good luck with creating a healthy workplace environment!