Work Environment - The Key to Business Success

A good work environment fosters a feeling of employee satisfaction in relation to their work. This translates into greater benefits for the company.

People need to work to survive. But when the work environment is toxic, it becomes a huge negative influence on workers’ lives and this also affects the company. Thus, people leave their homes to go to work feeling great discomfort and contempt and become robots. This causes problems for them and for their peers.

Thus, a good work environment is essential, as the success of the workers depends on it. But what’s a work environment? How to promote a good one? How does it influence a company’s productivity? What benefits does it bring? Continue reading this article to find answers to these questions.

What a work environment is all about

Work environment is an HR concept. It consists of the environment created at work. For this, they must take personnel policies and evaluation techniques into account. However, it mainly consists of being aware of the feelings, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and types of behaviors of workers in their job. Thus, the key is to be aware of its quality.

For example, some workplaces feel dense and exhausting. They make workers think that they can’t stand to work there any longer! Thus, human resources departments should be attentive and find a solution to this problem. This is because, by promoting a more favorable working environment, the company will improve.

The work environment consists of:

• Physical environment. Space, facilities, temperature, degree of pollution, etc.
• Social environment. This includes everything related to the relationship between people, such as communication and camaraderie.
• Structural characteristics. This is the size of the organization, management style, and formal structure, among other things.
• Personal characteristics. These are the skills, attitudes, motivations, and expectations of the employees towards the company and their work.
• Organizational behavior. It consists of productivity, turnover, absenteeism, job satisfaction, and employee stress, etc.

Thus, a work environment consists of the interaction between personal and organizational characteristics. Each factor determines the behavior of employees and, therefore, affects their sense of belonging, effectiveness, quality of services, and social impact. Thus, they’re the key to success.

How to improve the work environment

Although it may seem easy to make employees feel comfortable and to ensure that things flow, it’s actually a complex task. Therefore, it’s important to promote a good working environment.

• Workplace. The workplace must reflect harmony and must be suitable for the tasks the workers perform. There’ll be dissatisfaction if the tools aren’t adequate and the staff feels uncomfortable, which leads to a decrease in productivity. Therefore, it’s important to design adequate workspaces.
• The staff relationship. The relationships a worker has with their colleagues and bosses make them feel, think, and behave in a certain way. It’s better for the company if they’re assertive. The human resources manager must be attentive to what these relationships are like. Also, they must use strategies to promote a good interpersonal environment.
• Organizational and corporate culture. This is a matter of coherence between the set of perceptions, feelings, attitudes, habits, beliefs, values, ​​and behaviors within and between the different groups.

Other ways to improve the work environment

• Recognition. Rewards encourage good behavior in the company. Companies should offer positive reinforcement to those who perform well in order to motivate them.
• Teamwork. There’s a sense of unity when people solve problems as a team. Also, people feel supported and see things from other perspectives. This contributes to a better work environment because it includes everyone.
• Development. It’s about consistently being aware of how to improve produ0ctivity. Training is important here as it’ll help workers develop a sense of belonging. This way, they’ll want to be more productive.
• Thinking beyond work. Workers feel better and work more effectively when they have room to attend to the other areas of their lives. Therefore, it’s important to encourage a gap between their personal and working life. In other words, for them to have a life outside of their job.

Employees

A worker is a biopsychosocial being. Therefore, their psychological, social, and physical well-being must be important within the work environment. Although there’s no magic formula to guarantee the health of an individual, the previous strategies encourage them to have a better perception of their environment. Therefore, they’ll be more productive.

In fact, as suggested by José Guadalupe Salazar Estrada and his collaborators in an article for the journal ACIMED, a healthy work environment requires a climate that creates confidence and enhances the elimination of negative feelings, attitudes, and perceptions towards the organization and its members.

In addition, people should feel they’re doing something useful because it’s the only way to justify their effort. As you can imagine, an organization with a poor work environment can mentally and physically affect workers. And this will manifest in behaviors that aren’t conducive to business success.

The benefits

Having a suitable work environment contributes to making the company more successful. Some of the benefits are:

• Greater business productivity.
• Fewer layoffs.
• Greater physical and mental health.
• Active participation of workers.
• Increased employee motivation.
• A greater sense of belonging.
• Better perception of the organization.
• Greater teamwork.
• Better communication between employees.
• Greater satisfaction.
• An increase in employee engagement.
• Greater results.
• Effectiveness.
• An increase in the quality of services.
• A greater social impact.

Why do good work environments lead to business success? Because they lead to greater achievements. Thus, people are more productive when they feel good. They’re also more powerful. Thus, higher performance significantly increases productivity and this translates into more benefits for a company.

Thus, the key to business success is taking the work environment, along with the belief system, attitudes, skills, emotions, and thoughts of employees, into account. This is an incredible way to promote people’s well-being, and the company will be in a better position to increase its profits as a consequence.