How Professionals Can Create and Maintain a Healthy Business Environment

All recruiters know that the job doesn’t stop when you hire someone. Part of our work is making sure that our employees are happy, healthy, and productive in the workplace. Sometimes this is as simple as buying snacks for the office kitchen, and sometimes it takes a little bit more. Here are a few best practices for maintaining a healthy business environment.

Learn people’s names and use them.

We want to make sure that our employees feel like they’re people first and workers second. A great way to connect with the office staff and make them feel respected is to call them by their names. This shows that you have made an effort to get to know them even though they aren’t someone you work with every day and that you care enough to use their names regularly.

If you work at a bigger company this can be tricky, but it is still worth doing. Consider making flashcards with people’s faces on them to help you learn your crew.

Facilitate informal discussion.

Performance reviews and mandatory HR meetings are horrible ways to get to know people. If you want to get a finger on the pulse of the office, you need to speak with your employees in the same way that they speak to each other. This means being social, going out to lunch with them, and even something as simple as greeting them in a more genuine way when you see them around the office.

This informal discussion is going to help you establish a more personal relationship with your employees which will give you more insight into their mental and emotional health.

Give people a safe place to talk.

Sometimes we all need to vent. An employee suffering from mental and emotional trauma is not going to be nearly as productive as they would otherwise be. Giving them the space to work through some of that and making them feel supported in their effort to do so is going to help them through it faster and help them be more productive.

You want to work within professional boundaries, but it can be useful to ask them about what is going on in their lives. Are they getting enough exercise? Are they having trouble at home? Maybe they aren’t getting enough sleep. Whatever the reason, help them through it and make sure they feel supported.

Encourage breaks.

Studies have shown that the average person only has about 3-5 active working hours in which they can really focus on their work each day. Companies that force employees to stay at their desks all day long and make break time feel like slacking off promote a culture that doesn’t help anyone.

Instead, encourage your employees to take breaks when they hit a wall and encourage them to speak with each other during their downtime. This will help them recharge after a long session of grinding away at their work and will also make them feel valued and supported.

Conclusion.

The most important thing to take away from this is that the best way to build a good business environment is to make your employees feel respected and empowered. You need to walk the line between being their friend and being management, and yes, that’s a lot easier said than done.

Following this guide will help. Speak with them informally, spend facetime with your new hires, and ask them about what’s going on in their lives. Make a real emotional investment in the people who work for you and they will do better work, simple as that.