Most business owners want their employees to enjoy being at work. When your employees enjoy coming to work, they are more productive and more likely to stay with the company long term. These are two essential ingredients for any business but especially if you want to grow a small business. If you think that your current business environment could use some improvement, below are a few methods you can use to create a more enjoyable work environment.
Relax the Dress Code
One easy thing you can do right away is to relax your dress code. If your office currently requires all staff to wear full business attire each day, consider relaxing this policy. For example, you can allow your team to wear business casual attire on most days, except the days when you have clients coming into the office. Another option is to establish one day a week for casual wear, such as Casual Fridays. By allowing your employees to work in more comfortable clothing, you’ll make their workdays a little more enjoyable.
Recognize and Reward Accomplishments
Next, make sure you recognize when your employees accomplish something and consider rewarding those accomplishments. Everyone likes to feel that their work is valued and that what they’re doing isn’t going unnoticed. Simple gestures like congratulating a salesperson on a big sale or sending out a mass email to the team congratulating someone on their anniversary with your team can go a long way.
Rewards can also provide your team members with a nice boost in energy. These rewards can be financial, such as a bonus at the end of a quarter, or much smaller items like little gifts. For rewards, it’s often more about the gesture than the specific item itself. If you want an added bonus, consider making the rewards some union made products to demonstrate that your business supports workers.
Run Team Building Exercises
Friendlier work environments come about when your employees enjoy working together. This is sometimes hard to establish, especially for newer businesses when the employees don’t know each other that well yet. To help your employees get to know one another, run some team-building exercises. These can be as simple as some fun “getting to know you” games or something a little more ambitious, like taking the team out to participate in an “escape room” challenge. The more team-building exercises you run, the closer your team will feel to one another, which ultimately leads to a more enjoyable work environment.
Have Office Competitions
Similar to team-building exercises, friendly office competitions are a great way to get your employees to interact with one another. You can make these competitions work-related or find something that has nothing to do with work at all. For example, you can have a monthly competition in your sales department to see who makes the most sales. Another option is setting up a fantasy football league within your office, giving your employees something fun to talk about when they’re not working. There are plenty of office competition ideas out there so think about what your employees would enjoy most.
Change the Décor
Décor also plays a big role in how enjoyable an environment is. If your office uses harsh lighting, has uncomfortable chairs and the walls are bare and drab, it’s unlikely that anyone will enjoy working there all day. A few simple changes, like adding some plants around the office, changing the color of the walls, putting in soft carpeting, and adding some artwork to the walls can make a big difference. If you don’t feel comfortable doing the designing yourself, there are many interior decorators that can assist you.
Play Music
Finally, consider playing some music throughout the office. Many people enjoy working with some background music on and it can help make the office feel more lively, not to mention improve productivity. You don’t need a lot to play music, just a good speaker and a playlist that everyone can agree on. You can even give different employees control over the playlist each day, provided the music is appropriate for the office.
Start Making Your Work Environment More Enjoyable
As you can see, you don’t have to do a lot to make your work environment more enjoyable. Simple things like running more team-building exercises, changing up the décor, and relaxing the dress code don’t cost a lot of money and you can implement them fairly quickly. Once you do, you’ll likely see a change in the demeanor of your employees. We hope that these few suggestions help improve your business’s work environment and that before long you’ll start to see the benefits that come from happier employees.
