How can you build positive energy in your workplace?
Imagine an office where everyone was excited to come to work, and they stayed energized and productive all day. Is this a fiction? Perhaps so: people aren’t always full of energy, but you can shape your office environment and culture so that it renews your employees instead of draining their energy, making it a pleasure to come to work and turning your workplace into a more productive environment.
Have Realistic Expectations
Manage your time. Get more done, more quickly. In a competitive environment where pushing yourself is considered to be essential, it’s hard to stop, take a step back, and get realistic about your focus and productivity. Even if your employees are sitting at a desk, this doesn’t mean that they’re working at an optimal level. Part of business leadership is setting a workplace culture that embraces hard work, but not at the expense of health or true productivity. Be upfront about your expectations for employee hours, but consider whether your expectations support the long-term health of your employees and your company.
Implement Conflict Management
To renew energy at work, you need to plug the holes. Conflict is a huge potential energy drain for your employees. When you’re focused on developing your business leadership, you need to ensure that you have a proactive approach to conflict management. As you hire, consider the cultural fit of each individual with your organization so that you can choose those who will work well with the other players on your team.
According to the Wall Street Journal, businesses are now shifting to looking at ways to choose followers, those who integrate and support working teams. Choose those who are willing to form a supportive community, “taking responsibility for shared goals, being a self-starter and telling leaders the awkward truth when they mess up.” Develop a culture of feedback, encouraging productive discussion of ideas and options rather than quiet, destructive interpersonal conflict.
Encourage Mental Breaks
Need to renew your employees’ energy? Give them the opportunity to take a break. Make your vacation time, sick days, and leave opportunities as flexible as possible. Model taking breaks throughout the day: one of the most radical actions you can take as a business leader is to take a visible lunch break. According to Business News Daily, “disconnecting can increase…happiness, health and productivity.” A welcoming break room can facilitate these breaks during the day.
Design for Renewal
Is your office environment vigorous, with textures and colors that please the eye, high air quality, natural light, and splashes of green? Your office doesn’t need to be a spa, but adding colors such as pale yellow, green, and blue can calm, focus, and reinvigorate employees. Excellent air quality and flow and natural light make employees feel healthy, happy, and at home.
Add Flexible Spaces
Sometimes, a change of scenery can reinvigorate the tired brain. Whether you have an open office or cubicles, encourage employees to shift from the every day to a new work space when required. Develop quiet pods for concentration and add couches and cushions for casual, interactive work environments. Changing the places where people work can change their attitudes towards their work day.
Encourage Healthy Eating
Physical health improves mental health and energy at work. A well-stocked break room full of healthy snacks is a draw for employees who want to take a break. Get fruit and vegetables delivered to the office, and add local, organic, and vegetable-rich options to the corporate cafe.
Exercise and relaxation programs can help your employees sustain their energy and enthusiasm.
Get Moving
Looking for a way to improve your employees’ moods, focus their concentration, and increase their energy? According to the Harvard Medical School, exercise is the answer. It not only improves memory, it “helps maintain healthy blood pressure and weight, improves energy, lifts mood, lowers stress and anxiety, and keeps the heart healthy, all of which contribute to brain health.” Implement a lunch time workplace exercise program, and you can increase afternoon energy and decrease the brain fog that often visits after lunch.
Get Personal
When you’re developing your workplace practices, think outside the overall corporate plan. Consider how you and your employees can connect as people. Those interpersonal connections that go beyond workplace programs help employees feel valued, respected and understood. They turn your workplace into a community rather than a place where people need to go to make a living.
This year, create workplace programs that reinvigorate your workforce.
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