Why your work environment is the key to a strong culture

The fact that having a good atmosphere and a sense of community in a workplace helps employees feel better is not new information. Good relationships at work make us more resilient to stress when we face challenging tasks. This makes us more productive and is likely to mean we stay with our employer for a longer time. Perhaps most important of all, it makes it more enjoyable to be at work. By making small changes, you can achieve big differences when it comes to ensuring every employee is happy in the workplace.

The break room is a central space for socialising and building relationships at work. Something as simple as providing a basket of fruit for your employees can make a big difference in the working environment. It gives people an extra reason to stretch their legs and enables spontaneous meetings and conversations over the fruit basket. A comfortable sofa or two in the office gives your employees a break from their desks and allows them to meet in a more relaxed atmosphere. A dedicated breakroom improves wellbeing for those who sometimes need to spend a little time alone.

Giving your employees the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they want to work from home or on site will also probably increase both productivity and the likelihood of attracting new employees to your company. However, when you offer a hybrid workplace, it’s even more important to create and maintain a strong company culture.

Today, we’re all well aware of how easy it can be to feel like you’re excluded from the community of the workplace if you work remotely the majority of the time. One simple way to reduce the risk of anyone feeling excluded, and to make the climate more inclusive, is to hold all meetings digitally, even if only one person is working from home.

A shared email or chat thread can also help build unity and create relationships between employees. It can also be useful to create a thread that doesn’t directly relate to work but is devoted to more relaxed and personal topics – perhaps even just for cute cat pictures or fun video clips!