Your employees do a lot for you. Have you ever considered what you can do for them? A job is far more than just a way to pay the bills – it’s an important part of your employees’ everyday lives, and they spend 40 hours a week in your office. The least you can do is make coming to work a little better. By creating the proper environment, you’ll be giving your employees everything they need to learn, grow, and flourish. They benefit, you benefit, and your customers or clients will also see the rewards.

Make Sure You’re Tending to Their Needs

You may be neglecting your employees without even knowing it. Environmental factors, as well as their daily workload, can slowly combine to create something that seems innocuous but is actually awful. Being in a fast paced environment all the time can naturally cause a rise in tension. They’ll carry that stress home with them, and it will spill into their daily lives. They’ll lose their spark and feel bogged down all the time.

This is called burnout, and it’s important to spot it the moment it begins. Burnout can be handled by lightening the load and affording your employees with a few “lazy days” to catch up with cleaning, organising, and reading emails. Employees who have “had it up to here” might prefer to take a few days off.

Don’t Crowd Them Out

Space means so much. Nobody is going to be able to get anything done if they’re having to elbow their way through crowded hallways and put their things on the floor when their small desks become piled sky-high. If you’ve grown since you obtained your current office, it’s time to start searching Gumtree for a new one. It’s really hard to have a good day at work when it’s impossible to get anything done. You’ll boost productivity and give everyone a little space to breathe.

Give Them a Reason to Smile

When a big, daunting project is finally seen through to completion, your employees shouldn’t be sombre, sweaty, sighing, and throwing themselves on the ground. Rather than letting everyone going about their day feeling like they barely avoided failure, create an environment that sets a different tone.

You want them to feel like they rose to the challenge and achieved an incredible victory. This means celebrating as often as possible. Bring in some pizza or burgers and have an extra long lunch. Discuss everyone’s accomplishments individually and tell then why their work was instrumental in helping everyone win.

Let Their Thoughts and Feelings Flow

Your employees are your future, as long as you’ll allow them to be. If you want everyone to lend their innovative perspectives to your ongoing success, the biggest challenge is creating an environment in which everyone feels comfortable to talk. If employees feel intimidated, they might be afraid to speak their minds. Make sure everyone has time to put their two cents in at a meeting. Never reject suggestions – even if they don’t seem too great. If you spot issues, ask questions. Helping an employee work out the kinks in a proposed solution or change might help everyone stumble upon a new line of creativity.

Decorate Once in a While

Environments are more than just social aspects and cultural experiences. They’re also visual. Your employees want to enjoy being in the space they’re in, and if things are drab and plain, everyone will feel it. Paint the walls. Hang up art, or invite artistically minded employees to provide their own works to the office. Everyone feels a little more at ease in an environment that feels homier. Let’s face it – we all feel like we live at the office once in a while.

Sometimes, a more relaxed approach has the potential to make a real difference. Always listen to your employees when they have suggestions regarding what you can do to make the environment a little more harmonious for everybody.

Author: Emma Lewis, Spacer.com.au

Original article appeared on www.liquidlearning.com