de Toxic workplace remains a challenge. According to the 2023 Work in America Survey, nearly a fifth of US employees admitted their workplace is ‘very or somewhat toxic’. Even more workers — more than half of the global workforce — considered changing their occupation or were actively looking for a new job in 2023, as stated in Gallup’s State of Global Workforce report.
While Gallup doesn’t specify why workers seek another occupation, a work environment can be a crucial factor in why employees remain loyal to their employer. Considering the constant stress and uncertainty we live in today, people tend to avoid toxic companies.
If you fail to provide convenient amenities and a friendly atmosphere at work, you risk losing your employees. This results in higher turnover rates and ramps up your HR expenses as attracting a new employee can cost you around 6-9 salaries of the existing one.
In this article, we will provide workplace improvement ideas to help you retain talent and facilitate the process of attracting new ones ⬇️
What Attracts Your Employees in a Comfortable Office Environment?
To improve the workplace efficiently and satisfy your employees’ needs, you need to understand what’s so attractive about a comfortable toxic-free office environment.
Employees’ well-being
Focus on employees’ well-being is among the top reasons. APA’s 2023 Work in America Survey discovered that 9 out of 10 workers said it’s very or somewhat important for employees to know that their employer values their emotional well-being. Workplace stress significantly affects their mental health, with 77% of employees admitting that they experienced work-related stress last month.
How does well-being relate to the workplace? Both of these factors are related, as on average people spend about a third of their lives or 90,000 hours at work.
Similarly to us aiming to make our private environment cozy, employees prefer comfortable working conditions. They affect general mental well-being and foster increased productivity at work. The latter results in an increased sense of accomplishment.
Employees’ motivation and engagement
Your work environment primarily impacts your employees’ motivation. According to the Steelcase report, those who are highly satisfied with their workplace are more engaged.
To make workplaces even more convenient and relevant to the needs of employees, special software can be used to analyze the behavior of colleagues in the office.
Special systems will help to find out the statistics on the use of different zones in the office and make the space as comfortable as possible for everyone.
A comfortable work environment reduces distractions and stress, and therefore promotes a productive atmosphere. Satisfaction with the workplace increases motivation and boosts employee engagement.
As a result, your team is more enthusiastic about their work, which makes them enjoy their working routine and accomplish more with less effort.
Why Does Work Environment Matter for Businesses?
Overall, a toxic environment and negative corporate culture hinder employee retention, attendance, collaboration, happiness and productivity. These five factors are predominantly affected by a negative environment, according to the Toxic Workplace Report.
Businesses that don’t improve the workplace environment and leave to chance toxins in their offices often incur increased expenses. For example, less happy employees are likely to be less engaged. Gallup discovered that low engagement costs the global economy around 9% of global GDP — or $8.9 trillion.
Poor collaboration, absenteeism, high turnover and low productivity also make businesses pay. If your team can’t communicate and work together, while employees are constantly distracted and stressed, work efficiency will suffer.
You can solve the problem if you rethink your workplace. Often, a single investment in office improvement allows you to create a productive environment. This is a way for you to cut (or eliminate) future employee turnover and poor efficiency costs, as well as prevent profit losses.
How to Improve Your Workplace Environment: 5 Working Ideas
There are some common rules to make a convenient office environment. They include bright lighting, an abundance of sunlight, comfortable and ergonomic furniture, calm interior design and more. Many also create an equipped office kitchen, together with snacks, drinks, or even meals, to help employees save on business lunches. Besides this, your work environment should be clutter-free and well-organized with storage bins and label makers. All these make your office functional, hence fostering employees’ productivity.
However, a functional workplace doesn’t mean good, toxin-free working conditions. Here are five ways or ideas to improve the workplace for you to get rid of toxins at work and set up a better environment.
1. Set up Relaxation Areas
Employers often overestimate their efforts to maintain their employees’ well-being. The APA’s recent report shows that workers need more focus on their physical and mental health. More than half of the respondents strongly or somewhat agree that their employer thinks their workplace environment is a lot mentally healthier than it actually is.
To promote healthy well-being, create conditions for your employees to relax when at work. Here are some suggestions:
- Set up a gaming area. Fluffy sofas, dimmed light, funny interior designs with posters or bright-colored walls, video game consoles and boarding games are some ways to let your employees release tension.
- Make a workout zone. Even a small area with basic equipment like dumbbells for power exercises, fitballs and yoga mats for stretching, or a good exercise bike for a quick workout is enough.
- Think through the interior. To decrease the level of stress, consider adding 1) standing working points in front of the window to allow your team to observe nature, 2) a lot of plants that increase productivity and creativity, 3) fun stress-releasing elements like acoustic office cabins where employees can shout as loud as they wish when they are on the edge.
- Create an online space to chat informally. To promote a corporate stress-free culture, set up a chat in a messenger or a channel in Slack or Teams where employees can chat and share music or movies. You can also set up weekly mental health calls when employees discuss acute problems at work, hence releasing the tension.
2. Make Collaboration Zones
Employees suffer from loneliness. This applies to all, remote, hybrid and those working fully on-site. On average, the fifth part of your team experienced a lot of loneliness the previous day, according to the Gallup findings. This hinders work satisfaction and collaboration, which eventually makes businesses incur extra expenses, either on employee recruitment or retention.
One way to solve the problem is to set up collaboration zones. If your office is functional, promoting enough personal space and a calm atmosphere for maximum concentration, a collaboration zone should be designed for efficient communication and brainstorming. The best solution is to create it in a spacious location: for example, in a big, yet rather remote hall.
To help employees find the right areas in time, rather than running to the receptionist for clarification, help them orientate themselves.
Furnishing can be versatile. Comfortable sofas and a coffee table or a big round or oval table with comfy chairs will suit. Besides this, fill the spaces with collaboration tools: whiteboards, pens, markers, notebooks, notes and remote conferencing equipment.
If you lack spacious vacant zones, we suggest making your meeting room functional enough for employee collaboration. It may remain formal in terms of interior design but should be equipped for brainstorming and ideation.
3. Enhance Your HR Processes
To improve the workplace, you need to adopt a new corporate culture. This means that employees’ comfort at work should be among the top HR priorities. Rethink all the processes, including onboarding and training of new employees, as well as retaining the existing ones.
Some ways to promote a healthy workplace are:
- Abandon micromanagement to allow your team more flexibility when it comes to the development of the career, projects or even scheduling.
- Collect feedback to identify your employees’ needs and adjust your office space, processes, career development activities and more.
- Promote a healthy work-life balance for your team to actually spend time in your relaxation zone playing games, napping or reading a book.
- Make your employees feel comfortable by conducting informal meetings or brainstorming sessions, providing a clear career path and measurable objectives.
4. Go for a Hybrid Work
Flexibility never hurts, especially now, when employees seek their lives to revolve around their ‘wants’ rather than rigid working conditions.
Hybrid work allows your team to maintain a healthy work-life balance without dropping out of the team completely — which remote employees often suffer from. What’s more, they show better productivity compared to those working fully in the office or remotely.
For businesses, it’s a working way to increase productivity, decrease office costs and make a competitive HR offer. However, Deloitte discovered that companies struggle to organize and manage hybrid work. Many lose control by giving their employees more flexibility than usual, while others can’t decide on which level of flexibility to allow.
The biggest problem, though, is potentially hindered in-person collaboration and workspace usage. Since it’s hard to predict when employees will visit the office, the location may end up either overcrowded or empty. Many introduce schedules, while others prefer to automate the process without excluding flexibility.
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When trying to improve the working environment, companies often use approaches from the last century. For example, when implementing hybrid working, they manage schedules and available workplaces in the office manually.
This may seem cost-effective, but it really isn't. Manual errors, executive payroll and slow processes undermine your productivity.
An effective way to rethink your workplace is to automate it. For example, implement specialized software for desk booking.
5. Promote Informal Activities at Work
A healthy workplace implies employees feel as if at home. Even though they attend your office, they exist in a friendly atmosphere of support, fun and empathy. This fosters idea generation, enhances communication across teams and employees’ loyalty.
Some examples of informal activities:
- One-on-one monthly audits to help workers reflect on their career path.
- Make them coffee breaks or outings.
- Corporate workouts, preferably outdoors, to take a break and stretch muscles.
- Informal work days when your team can abandon uniforms or work flexible hours.
Besides this, plan corporate events. It can be a themed party every quarter for your team to build connections in an informal atmosphere. By the way, informal events are always a good idea when a lot of new employees join the team. It’s a chance for them to get to know the rest of the team better.
Key Insights
- The global workforce is losing loyalty to their employers. They expect increased care for their well-being and a positive working environment. Employers believe they match the needs, yet many fail to do so.
- An improved workplace allows employers to manage a team of motivated, engaged and productive employees. This fosters increased revenue and reduced HR costs.
- To improve the work environment, create a functional office with relaxation and collaboration zones. Think through both furniture, interior and tools for online collaboration.
Rethink your corporate culture by promoting informal activities and even consider going hybrid. To provide a quality employee experience, adopt modern management options like those offered by Unspot — an all-in-one hybrid office platform.
