When you set up your company, the first person you had to rely on was you. It works out well at first – you know your own strengths and weaknesses; you could give yourself a good talking to; and you could work whatever hours you wanted (or didn’t). Your staff’s needs and the company’s needs were in perfect harmony.
Assuming you’ve hired a good team and you have systems in place for compliance and morale, your staff will need somewhere to work. While lots of workers and employers are in favour of open plan, some studies have shown that cellular or cubical style offices can lead to less distraction, reduction in noise, and less likelihood of passing an illness that may result in an absence. Regardless of the physical space or what your floor plan looks like, it’s the culture within your workplace that’s even more important than the layout. It only takes one disagreeable personality to upset the balance in your office.
Understanding the Impact on Staff Performance
What you really want is for your working environment to impact staff performance in a positive way. This comes down to the culture within the company and how things are done. In most places, you can tell what the culture is like very early on. What companies want to do is to ensure that they have a positive working environment and that anything negative is nipped in the bud early. A negative culture can develop because there hasn’t been a good management system and leaders haven’t led by example. What you often find then is a toxic culture developing, leading to a wave of complaints and, consequently, poor morale in the workplace.
It’s important for a manager to lead by example and ensure that they behave as they want others to behave, that they speak to people in a respectful way, make sure that people know what exactly their job role is and how they fit into the team. If there is any sort of issue or complaint, there should an open environment and that you can give your feedback. It is also imperative to have a mechanism whereby people can speak to somebody if there’s a problem and that everyone understands there is consequences for poor behaviour.
Methods for Improving the Environment
Training and Development Opportunities
Some of the more expensive activities in Human Resources relate to recruitment and staff training. However, if you spend enough time and money on staff training you should be able to save some resources on recruitment efforts. Problems can arise due to a poor performing managers; it’s not just the staff that need training.
The company’s management may not have effective procedures for addressing grievances or complaints in the office, and as a result are not dealing with the things that come up in a day-to-day basis.
Working Environment Benefits
Essentially, any working environment is a bunch of people in the same place trying to get along. You need to ensure that people feel comfortable enough to be able to do their job properly and they get along with each other from a professional point of view. Putting a staff charter in place is a helpful way to communicate to everybody about the environment you are trying to create.
It can turn into a collaborative group exercise where – rather than saying ‘this behaviour is unacceptable’ – you ask the employees what works for them, and what they expect when they come to work every day. Your staff will feel more empowered because they feel like they’ve contributed to this charter and how the company is supposed to function.
Highlight Achievements, Recognition and Rewards
Another way to boost staff retention and make staff happier is by recognising their achievements and offering performance-based rewards: For example, it could be a small ‘thank you’ by presenting the staff member with a bottle of wine. It doesn’t have to be sophisticated, and it doesn’t have to be expensive, but in the interest of fairness and job satisfaction there should be a process for rewarding staff for a job well done.
A more formal reward can come through a performance management system that has salary increases and bonus criteria clearly set out against a key performance indicator. If the KPI is met, the reward can be added to the payslip.
If you have a positive working environment and you’re doing the right things, you shouldn’t have an above-normal attrition rate. It’s important that you hold onto people. The poor morale will spread throughout your office, and you will have other people leave if you don’t address the problems.
Look to Promote From Within
If you have staff that are receiving training, progressing in their roles and being rewarded by
meeting their KPIs it is natural for them to be in contention for a promotion. All upcoming opportunities should be made available to staff in the first instance. This way, they will feel there are opportunities to advance within the company. But equally, they should understand why there is a need for new talent.
Once they’ve gone through the interview process and been unsuccessful, it’s important to communicate what needs improvement and how they can try to prevent shortcomings with some further training. Essentially, the poor morale leads to higher costs: You have all the relationships that are lost that your staff have built up with clients or customers. When they leave, there’s a lack of knowledge, a loss of experience, a loss of learning, and the relationship loss, which is quite key.
Summary
HR is an ongoing investment for companies that want to be competitive, avoid legal action and enjoy their work. Your staff are an investment: With the right attention to detail early on, they will – like any good investment – flourish and grow in value.
