Surf AccountsLast updated: 1 February 2023
Creating a positive working environment for your employees
Kian Maguire31 January 2023
Creating positive work environments can greatly influence a worker's attitude towards their job role, co-workers, and performance levels. If you listen to top managers throughout all different industries the topic of creating a strong and positive culture is very important to them.
Consider the top sporting event on the planet, the World Cup which was held in December. The culture and high-performance environment separated teams that had a strong tournament compared to those who underperformed. If we look at Germany and Belgium, who had unhealthy relationships throughout the squad, it was really no surprise that they exited at the group stage. When compared to teams that demonstrated a positive and strong environment such as Croatia, Morocco (both semi-finalists) and Argentina (Champions), it is evident that the culture created within a team is a vital ingredient for success.
Creating a positive and high-performance environment is possible from start-ups all the way to the biggest companies in the world. If environment is important to the likes of Nike, Adidas, Aer Lingus, and LinkedIn – than it might be something to consider putting a real focus on this year. There are tips which can be easily adapted for your business, but one thing that is key, is consistency. With that in mind, here are three top tips to help improve the culture in your organisation.
3 tips to set a strong high-performance culture
Open lines of communication
Your role as a manager is to try and get the best out of the team you're managing and help them to succeed. Allowing open lines of communication between you and members of your team can help to build and shape the culture of your business. Try to consistently provide overall company updates, so people in your organisation are aware of changes and plans. You should also have conversations with each member of your team, outlining their overall role within that team environment, and to explain the tasks they are expected to complete on a week-to-week basis. Providing support for your workers is part of this. Try to remind them that you can be contacted at any time, to help with their development, learn new skills, to offer advice inside work and even outside of work if you are comfortable to do so.
Opportunities to develop your career
An important factor in creating that positive atmosphere in your business is by having an obvious pathway for career development. Creating a clear pathway to promotion, can serve as a real motivation for your workers, further enhancing that high-performance nature of your business. Opportunities to develop can be in many different forms such as up-skilling by taking an educational course, leading a project, offering networking opportunities, creating a mentorship programme, and creating a development plan with short- and long-term goals. Allow your employees to ask questions about development and understand what each employee’s goals are. If they want to improve a certain skill, put a plan in place for them to achieve this goal.
Linking back to the first point on communication – if you don’t make your staff aware of these opportunities for career development, you’ll miss out on building greater motivation and morale in your business.
Understand your employee
That brings us on to our last point on the importance of understanding your workers on an individual basis. By understanding what their top goals are, you can understand what will motivate them. One of your workers may have started a new family and is looking for more flexible work hours, whereas another member of your team may be fresh out of college and looking to learn new skills and understand different departments in the company. By understanding the individual, you will be able to set goals which will motivate them and create a tailor-made plan that suits their needs. An improvement in individual performances can only help to improve your business.
A helpful tip is to understand some of your employees interests outside of the workplace. This can be an easy conversation to have and will help to create that personal connection with them while adding to that positive environment.
Another idea is to listen to your employee’s “story.” Current Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe, mentioned in a recent podcast that he found this a great way to build team morale. He asked his players to give a presentation on how they got to where they are today. This helped build understanding among the team as well as creating relationships between the staff and players, that created a platform for success.
If you think this approach is too formal for your team, you could bring it up in a more casual way, such as during lunch time, over a cup of coffee, or during everyday conversation.
There are a variety of ways to improve and create a strong and positive working environment. Whether you are managing a start-up business, a high-class brand, or a professional sports team, creating a positive environment is the basis success, can be built on. These three easily implemented tips can get you started to create that atmosphere.