From Building-Centric to People-Centric Workplaces

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Workplaces|From Building-Centric to People-Centric WorkplacesFor decades, corporations put little thought into employee workspaces. The mindset of “one person, one desk,” left workers imprisoned in a sea of grey cubicles. More recently, organizations have played with open office plans and Google and Facebook-esque spaces that include beanbag chairs and basketball hoops, all in a ploy to attract and retain younger workers.

While the overall look and feel of an office space from an architectural and interior design standpoint can have its appeal, the true crux of the matter is how well the space enables and facilitates work.

Even before the pandemic required most workers to work remotely from their homes, employees were making demands for more flexible work situations and escape from the 20th-century office straitjacket. Agile working, hot-desking and the gig economy were already shifting attitudes away from the limitations of that one desk mindset.

Today, with good connectivity widely available, easy access to the internet and effective file sharing, any space can become a workplace and the pandemic proved that to all the remaining hold outs. At the same time, the pandemic also revealed the advantages and efficiencies of occasionally coming together face-to-face.

In the post-pandemic era, business leaders have an opportunity to shift the office space paradigm and give consideration to how their offices can operate in a way that enables and facilitates work. Specifically, the workplace can become a tool for organizational change. A 2019 Harvard University study revealed that organizations with a more employee-centric approach to office space see a reduction in absenteeism and staff turnover, and experience as much as a 16 percent rise in productivity.

Use these strategies to embrace 21st-century fit-for-purpose workplaces:

  1. Consider user experience. Creating a productive and innovative working environment requires understanding when, where and how people need to interact. Offer diverse work settings for the different functions people perform, along with areas to collaborate with colleagues, socialize or just take time out to think and relax. Ask yourself what behaviors you want to encourage, and then construct a setting that promotes and supports them.
  2. Create a dynamic ecosystem. Old attitudes about the office as a place where people merely put in their time must be replaced by new impressions of the office as a place where employees can up their game, give their best and deliver greater creativity and innovation. The challenge is to create workspaces that enable knowledge and information to be communicated effectively in an open and collaborative environment. This may mean bringing technological infrastructure up to speed and fit for purpose. To deliver 21st-century workplaces, there has to a joining of the dots between property, people and technology.
  3. Design workplaces to support wellbeing. Alongside employee productivity, take a holistic view toward engaging your people. For example, if people make use of the office regularly, they will value having a workspace they can personalized as opposed to relying on hot-seating arrangements that can lead to musical chairs. In a nutshell, a great workplace must be an investment in space and an investment in people in equal parts.
  4. Allow flexibility in where people choose to work. Put people in control of their work-life balance. The extent to which you empower people to make decisions about how they interact within their teams will foster a trusting employer-employee relationship and result in a boost to employee engagement. Further, this leaves you free to concentrate on the constructive management of aspects that contribute to the bottom line.
  5. Make decisions that reflect corporate values. The ubiquitous nature of social media means that society as a whole has its eye on your corporate values. Considerations such as engagement with the surrounding neighborhood, use of sustainable building materials and other socially responsible practices can meaningfully contribute to your brand’s status.

Every organization must now formulate its strategic thinking around turning placemaking into profit-making and creating new, more meaningful solutions for the workforce and the workplace. In order to deliver 21st-century workplaces, there needs to be a convergence of approaches to create workplaces that inspire employee engagement, foster creativity and increase productivity, while also improving a company’s capacity to compete and create value.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor |Chris KaneChris Kane has worked in the Corporate Real Estate sector for over thirty years, having operated as the Vice President of International Corporate Real Estate for The Walt Disney Company, before acting as Head of Corporate Real Estate at the BBC. His new book, Where Is My Office? Reimagining the Workplace for the 21st Century (Bloomsbury Business, Dec. 22, 2020) investigates innovative corporate real estate thinking in the modern workplace. Learn more at www.whereismyoffice.com.

3 Ways You Can Make Employees Feel Comfortable Enough To Return To The Workplace

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | 3 Ways You Can Make Employees Feel Comfortable Enough To Return To The WorkplaceThe pandemic has altered people’s lives in many ways, including forcing most employees to work from home. In some ways, this has immensely changed the dynamics of company culture, which hasn’t been to every business’ liking.

If you miss having your staff around, or you’re worried that remote working is damaging employee performance and productivity, you’re probably eager to get everyone back to the workplace ASAP. How do you do this, though, without harming people’s safety and ensuring that they all feel comfortable?

These three suggestions ought to help.

Have Consistent And Open Communication

If you want to have a successful business, it’s important to understand why employee communication is essential. The more you talk to your employees and understand their feelings about work, the likelier they are to be honest with you and become dedicated to the business.

Of course, trying to do this in big team meetings isn’t the way to go about things. Instead, you want to focus on one-to-one conversations so that employees can voice concerns without potential judgement from their colleagues. Admittedly, some people may still be nervous about sharing their struggles with you, but they’re more likely to open up this way.

In terms of COVID-19, regular communication can let you know who’s uncomfortable about returning to the workplace and find ways to ease their minds. That way, no-one has to do anything that they’re not comfortable doing.

Make The Workplace Exceptionally Hygienic

One of the biggest concerns that employees are likely to have about returning to the workplace is hygiene. After all, the reason they’ve been stuck at home for so long is that there’s a virus going around.

While you might not be able to give your employees absolute certainty that they won’t get sick, you can still provide them with an exceptional level of hygiene. This can be achieved in several ways, including using a COVID-19 fogging machine.

Capable of killing all but 0.0001% of germs, a disinfectant fogger could help your UK workplace to be as free of contaminants as possible. You’ll find such a solution at Ideal Cleaning, who promise that the process will only keep you away from work for as little as two hours. If you combine their fogging capabilities with social distancing and good employee hygiene, there’s a good chance that COVID-19 will never infiltrate your workplace.

Establish A Detailed Work Plan

If employees are still hesitant after opening communication and cleaning the office, it may be worth presenting them with a return-to-work plan. In this, you can detail exactly how you’ll ensure everyone stays safe, so the risk of the virus spreading is as low as possible.

In this detailed plan, you’ll probably want to include these protocols, as well as outlining how you’ll monitor and respond to employee behaviour. After all, there’s no point telling people to do x, y, and z if you’re not going to check that everyone follows your orders.

Your staff who are reluctant to return to the workplace need to know that you’ll do everything to keep them safe. Otherwise, they’re just going to continue working from home.

If your business is struggling with the remote working setup, then it’s understandable why you’d want everyone back as soon as possible. Just make sure you take all the necessary steps to acknowledge and protect your employees so that this move benefits, rather than hurts, your business.

How to Create a Healthy Workplace for Your Employees

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Healthy Workplace|How to Create a Healthy Workplace for Your EmployeesWith Coronavirus dominating news headlines across the world and people everywhere impacted by the global pandemic, it is little wonder that health is a subject at the forefront of many people’s minds right now.

If you manage a workforce, it is imperative to focus on protecting your employees from the threat of the virus and other health risks. Protecting the health of your employees is essential for many reasons. Firstly, from an ethical standpoint, you should be concerned about the health and safety of staff in your workplace. Secondly, having employees off sick can cost your business heavily, especially if you provide sick pay. Lastly, productivity will be severely affected by staff absenteeism; this puts additional pressure on your remaining employees to cover the workload. With this in mind, here is how you can ensure that your workplace is a healthy environment for your employees:

Keep it Clean

Having a clean workplace is essential to keep it looking good and protect your staff’s health. In a busy workspace, germs can travel fast. It does not take long for viruses to spread between employees, especially if they touch the same surfaces or are unable to socially distance. To minimize the risk of infection, you will need to keep your work environment as clean and hygienic as possible. This can be achieved using industrial cleaning services with the skills and experience necessary to clean industrial workspaces such as yours thoroughly. Stringent cleaning should help to mitigate the risk of viruses traveling between staff and allow everyone to stay healthy at work.

Improve Air Quality

Air quality plays a vital role in creating a healthy workplace. The impact of low air quality at work can be surprising, as it can affect your employees in more ways than you might think. Low indoor air quality can cause a range of problems for the occupants of the building. Depending on the cause of the low indoor air quality, symptoms could include allergic responses such as a sore, irritated throat, through to fatigue, headaches, and even cancer.

Monitoring the air quality in your building is essential to ensure that it is a healthy place for your employees to work. Regular cleaning can help to prevent allergies caused by dust mites. Scheduling regular maintenance of your building’s ventilation will play a significant role in keeping the air quality high. You should frequently maintain your air conditioning filters along with the air ducts, as this can significantly improve air quality.

Increase Safety Awareness

Workplace health and safety are serious issues. Safety is a subject that all business owners need to take seriously. Without appropriate health and safety precautions, employees’ risk of becoming injured at work is high. To prevent safety issues at work it is crucial that you provide your team with health and safety training regularly, and supply the equipment that they need to perform their job in the safest way possible.

Addressing each of these areas should help to create a healthy workplace for your employees.

How You Can Boost Productivity Within Your Small Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Productivity| How You Can Boost Productivity Within Your Small BusinessWhen you’re the owner of a small business, it can often seem like there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Unanswered emails, unfinished tasks, rising stress levels, and a to-do list as long as your arm are all fairly common, and can often leave you feeling overwhelmed. You can relax, though, because we’ve come up with five great ways to boost productivity in your small business.

Utilize Organizational Tools

To stay on top of daily, weekly, and even monthly tasks, the best thing to do is to utilize some of the great online tools available for businesses. Asana is a brilliant work management app that allows you to organize and plan your workflow more easily; tasks can be scheduled either for yourself or for other team members, and there’s also a great built-in messaging feature which can easily replace traditional emails. Microsoft Teams is fantastic for coordinating staff messages and arranging meetings, and also includes a handy conference call element.

Choose Business Coaching

There’s nothing more helpful when you’re struggling than receiving motivation and tips from someone with more experience and knowledge. INFIX are a team of consultants who provide small businesses with coaching packages on how to grow your company, via one-to-one online video sessions. Covering everything from strategy and goal-setting to growth and pricing, they’re a one-stop shop for anyone who has hit a stumbling block within their business.

Motivate Your Employees

One of the secrets to a successful small business is happy employees; it’s proven that motivated and upbeat staff provide better results, so it pays to take this into consideration. Setting reasonable working hours, providing fair pay and being supportive are all great ways to stay on top of staff morale – and remembering to give credit and encouragement is also key. Another great tip is to seriously consider flexible working requests; parents and guardians often require time off at short notice, and being understanding in these situations is beneficial.

Delegate Tasks

As the owner of a small business, it can often be tempting to try and manage all of the most important tasks yourself – but this is often a one way road to unfinished work and dissatisfied customers. Many employees will be keen to progress within the business, take on more hours or further their career, so increasing their workload can be beneficial to everyone concerned. Giving employees more autonomy and responsibility isn’t only helpful to you – it can also make them far more productive.

Pick the Right Foods

Eating the wrong foods at work can put you on a fast track to flat energy levels, sluggish thinking and low motivation, so ensure you fill your body with the good stuff throughout the day. If you’re super busy finding time for lunch can be tricky, so make sure what you do eat is packed with nutrients; avocados, quinoa and chia seeds are all superfoods which stick with you, and can easily be mixed into a quick and tasty salad. Keeping healthy snacks on hand is also a great tip (and one your staff will thank you for!); nuts and seeds, dried fruit and even the humble banana are all great for keeping hunger at bay throughout the day.

Tips for Retaining Employees During the COVID-19 Pandemic

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Retaining Employees|Tips for Retaining Employees During the COVID-19 PandemicThe coronavirus pandemic has changed the landscape of employee and employer relations. Before, the retention of employees could be greatly influenced by the environment and relationships. Yet, for many businesses, now the only interaction they have with their employees is online.

More than ever, people struggle with their work-life balance, struggle to maintain their productivity, and struggle with their mental health.

When looking to retain employees through the pandemic, hopefully to the other side, it is important to consider the specific issues COVID-19 has caused.

Excellent Communication

One of the greatest struggles employees are facing right now is feeling out of the loop. Communication may have been easier before, when you could call someone into your office and speak to them face to face. But it’s different now.

Just because you can’t speak to your employees face to face doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep up that level of communication.

Ensuring everyone is on the same page and understands what is expected of them is key. Still, in the mental health crisis we find ourselves in, communicating more generally will help too.

More people than ever will be dealing with loss, grief, and poor health. Alongside that is the general anxiety caused by the pandemic and the listlessness and depression that has plagued many due to the new lifestyle we have had to adopt.

Taking time to ask your employees how they are doing and speaking to them personally will create a working environment employees will want to stay with, effectively retaining them through the pandemic.

Compensation and Perks

This may have been easier to dish out pre-pandemic, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still consider them to retain employees. Benefits are a crucial pillar of the employee experience, even more so now than before.

In an increasingly difficult world to navigate, aspects like paid time off, health packages, and retirement plans are more important than ever.

If employees feel like they’ve been treated well over the pandemic, they are more likely to stay. However, if they feel as though you didn’t support them enough, you will lose their trust, and they will be unlikely to stay long-term.

Wellness Activities

Providing a focus on wellness within your business is essential right now. Many are suffering through the pandemic and need relief.

Wellness activities focus on keeping your employees healthy – whether mentally, physically, or emotionally. Whilst this will help you retain your employees as they feel supported by the business, it will also help you out as employer. A healthy workforce means a productive workforce.

Kill two birds with one stone, and invest in your employees’ wellbeing.

Retain your employees easily

The pandemic has thrown up so many issues for business owners. Retaining your employees through this time will be difficult, but it offers you a chance to prove yourself to your employees. If you manage to retain them through this difficult time, you’ll be able to retain them through anything.