The Work Environment Matters – This is How You Can Improve Your Company’s

by Groshan Fabiola I try to cover as many topics as I can

The employee experience at the workplace influences greatly their levels of productivity, fulfilment, and satisfaction. The work environment goes beyond the general atmosphere at the workplace, and consists of more palpable elements such as the way in which the workplace is designed, if it meets certain requirements, based on each employee’s personality traits and so on. For enhancing the productivity, it has been proven that a bigger accent has to fall on enhancing worker’s experience. Below are some strategies that business owners and CEOs can consider for a better workers’ experience at the workplace, and subsequently, increasing their productivity. The three areas that have been proven to enhance or damage this experience are the cultural, physical and technological areas. These seem to be the deal makers or breakers in discussion.

How is the physical workplace shaping worker’s productivity?

The physical workplace is the environment which is leading to palpable experiences: what we see, smell, touch and so on. It includes everything that is material, from the floor plans, to the office furniture, the security systems available, but we are also speaking about the demographics at the workplace. The age groups matter, and so does the diversity level. Moreover, some special perks such as a dedicated area where to serve a warm meal, if there is available any catered food, lounge area, on-premise gym etc., matter as well. A recent study emphasized the importance of the workplace environment as that particular area that enables humans to perform work-related activities in better parameters. The same study identifies the workplace environment as that particular tool that many successful employers use to attract and retain the human resource. The physical workplace environment guides the decision of keeping or quitting a job, as well as their performances at the workplace, in the case of more than 63% of the respondents to a poll. Work environment designers are putting continuous efforts into creating the perfect space for boosting employee productivity, satisfaction as well as decreasing the stressors.

For instance, a recent trend is creating spaces for introverts and extroverts, in order to provide an appropriate working space for each type of personality. Also, the interior designers at a series of kitchen display showrooms in Sheffield claim that the number of business owners and CEOs that pass their showroom’s doorway increased over the past two years. They seem to show a higher interest in how to create a more suitable working space for their employees, a working space that is designed to increase the comfort levels at the workplace by replicating the facilities available in a home, while boosting their creativity and perception of time spent at work.

Also, in an attempt to replicate the environment at home, employers actually let more and more employees work from home, if the job’s description allows such measures. However, while many claim that office spaces are dead and buried, just as many experts in the industry see them making a forceful comeback in the near future, but with some small adjustments: environments that make the employees happy, more creative and make them anticipate another working day. And as many studies claim, multiple working models implemented inside the same company seem to be the most effective when it comes to increasing employee productivity and satisfaction rates.

A work environment should reflect the company culture

Employees seem to have a better feedback towards companies whose culture is strongly reflected in the physical work environment. For instance, employees working at companies in the technology industry seem to be happier at the workplace if the physical resources there reflect the technological advancement sustained and developed by the company itself. Smart PCs, a fully adaptable work environment, from the lighting to temperature, for example, these all matter. A stress-free company culture should be suggested by the general design of the offices: a lounge area, a relaxation room, an open kitchen and so on.

Does company culture really matter when it comes to productivity?

We mentioned in the beginning that the physical environment is not the only thing that matters – at least, for employees – but so does the culture. Being a big coordinate integrated into the work environment, the company culture shapes the levels of happiness (or stress, for that matter) experienced by the worker. And given the fact that yearly, only in the USA, workplace stress-related issues eat up more than $500 million, this should raise some concerns. Also, the Harvard Business Review authors, Emma Seppala and Kim Cameron, claim that almost 80% of the workplace accidents are caused by stress. In the same article, the authors claim that a workplace culture guided by fear will cost the company in discussion more as it usually leads to high rates of absenteeism (almost 40%) and accidents (almost 50%), but also more errors – more than 60% (and costly ones). Higher voluntary turnover rates are also present in those companies with a fear culture. These all cost companies plenty of money as errors are costly, so is absenteeism, but also continuous training programmes for continuously new employees. As the interior designers at Classique Interiors Sheffield claim, more and more employers are interested in implementing a company physical environment that reflects the positive company culture and practices.

It’s not difficult to acknowledge in these conditions that employees nowadays prefer a to work in a better environment, an environment which values companionship and recognition at the workplace over a higher wage. Phycological issues linked to workplace environment stressors make more and more victims and employees’ appreciation of a positive workplace environment increased over the past years. Workers seem to relate better to an enforcing environment in which their accomplishments are recognized and a fear culture is lacking. This way, small and large enterprises started to consider employee’s needs more and to reshape companies in order to increase their levels of satisfaction and productivity.