Whether it is because of potential costs or the disbelief of an owner, there are companies that do not invest in the human resource department to mediate in the relations between employers and employees, to foster a more constructive and positive work environment. The truth is, there is no need to implement extremely sophisticated policies in order to manage people and encourage work relationships that can be beneficial for everyone. It is as easy as to focus the company’s efforts on promoting understanding and harmony as a strategy to build healthy work relations, and as a result of this initiative, efficiency will increase.
We have to admit that bad relations in a company can have devastating effects in terms productivity, undermining efficiency and increasing errors, discrepancies, complaints and absenteeism, whereas having a conciliatory attitude tends to harvest more advantages.
Therefore, each company will have to find out if changes need to take place regarding organizational attitude and values, in an attempt to ensure a more favorable work environment. One of the consequences of a negative work environment is losing amazing workers who look for more enriching and healthier professional horizons where they can progress. Other consequences of dissatisfied workers are the loss of talent, low productivity and an increase in the cost of recruitment and efforts towards the preparation of new workers.
What Can Be Done? Promote Sincere Cooperation
The key for achieving success in a company’s environment initiates with the ability of the management for fostering good relations with the workers and promoting among them the creation of an environment of understanding and cooperation aimed to promote team-work, efficiency and productivity, which are foundational for high performance. This healthy environment has nothing to do with artificially forced synergies. On the contrary, dissimulation and feigning are immediately perceptible, and undermine the relationships between the staff.
A sincere attitude based on the understanding that work thrives when there is a climate of respect and understanding is the starting point to improve work relations and, therefore, harvest the fruit of doing a good job.
Establishing Corporate Dynamics for a Good Working Environment
For starters, the whole company is a relational framework and every activity involves a continuous exercise of interactions that initially rest in the information that is shared. Respect is a necessary condition to collaborate towards the same goal, and how the information about the company and workers is shared is a basic sign of respect to those who you work with. The most effective communication is always the one that occurs face-to-face, via verbal interaction and provides a great opportunity to reinforce executive leadership.
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The company’s management has the responsibility of organizing tasks and leading people in the right direction to achieve corporate goals, and their relational skills are the main tool they have at their disposal to lead, guide, engage, and motivate individuals and teams. Their communicative competence will be decisive. Managers are key players in the construction of corporate culture and the main promoters of teams’ morale and organizational behavior. They have to understand that employees work better if they develop a sense of belonging; if they feel they are part of a project and part of the organization.
To inform means to facilitate knowledge of the company’s general policy, results, economic activities, social policy, production processes, customers and suppliers, scope of legislation in the sector, technical and economic developments, etc.
To engage means to instill in a team the feeling of belonging, to create bonds of solidarity among the staff, and to foster the dialogue between different individuals, levels or departments. There is a sense of identification from the people with the organization.
To motivate is to make employees feel important. Motivation can be achieved by communicating positive aspects, appreciating individual and team efforts, teaching corporate strategies and allow staff to be partakers of those strategies, contributing to the development of people and teams.
Positive or negative signs in the aspects mentioned above will determine the quality of the work environment and how relations will develop in a company. It is demonstrated that a favorable environment will encourage action, high performance and the necessary conditions for achieving of corporate goals, while it is evident that a negative atmosphere will produce discomfort, and will always be a hindrance for success on every level.
No matter the situation in your company, it is always possible to change and improve the work environment by encouraging harmony and understanding, as a strategy to build the foundation for healthy work relations in which work becomes a satisfying experience. Entrepreneurs, executives and managers have in their hands the possibility of transforming their work environment into an experience that is worth to being a part of.
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