Most people would agree that their workplace is not the most exciting place to be. At the end of the day, your job is still just a job. But what if it wasn’t “just a job”? When you place positivity and fun in the work environment, everything starts to get brighter. Cultivating a positive working environment is quite important—a study in 2012 found that work environment is the deciding factor in employee satisfaction. While a poor work environment can slow productivity, a good one can speed it up! When people are unhappy with their jobs, they tend to make more mistakes, take a longer time with assignments, and can cause them to consider looking for a different job.
If you’re unsure whether your business’s work in environment is suffering, here are a few signs you should look for:
- Minimal and/or poor interactions between employees
A work environment where people are friendly and nice with each other is ideal for all people. Transparency and good communication are crucial for building a positive environment. Building friendships with colleagues is the key to creating a place where everyone will be excited to go to everyday.
- High turnover
It might be common sense that a high turnover rate can be a sign of a poor work environment. If many of your colleagues are leaving for competitor jobs, you can safely assume that the work environment played at least a small part in their decision to leave.
- Lacking enthusiasm
You want to be able to be enthusiastic about the work that you do. With the huge amount of time that most people spend at work, you should at least be excited to be there. Once the enthusiasm for your job leaves you, you start to slowly but surely lose interest in what you’re supposed to be doing. While we all have parts of our jobs that aren’t enjoyable or we wish could be made a little more fun, but we also generally don’t have the same problem with everything that our job entails. When everything about your job becomes boring, you can know that you’ve lost your enthusiasm.
When it comes to your job, no one wants to work somewhere they don’t want to be. This is why it’s direly important to be able to recognize unhealthy, negative work environments and work towards turning them more positive. The benefits don’t lie—positive work environments are definitely ideal.
