
Published February 22, 2020
3 essentials for creating the ideal work environment
Building the ideal work environment requires getting a lot of things right. Youâve got to consider company culture, the physical office space, your management structures, the companyâs tools and software, and employee compensation and progression pathsâto name a few.
But you could knock all these things out of the park and still come up short. Often itâs the intangibles, like employee relationships and finding value in oneâs work, that can make or break an employeeâs experience.
We asked experts and seasoned employers for their take on the non-negotiables of creating an ideal work environment. If you do nothing else, focus on these three factors, and youâll have a strong foundation for creating a workplace where all employees can flourish.
1. Prioritize transparency and keeping everyone in the loop
Workplace transparency, or making information and decisions available across the organization, is fundamental to keeping employees engaged and happy, according to Gareth Jones, a visiting professor at IE Business School in Madrid and co-author of Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?. As the former head of human resources at the BBC, heâs well aware of the importance of information sharing, especially throughout large organizations.
Jones advocates a policy of radical honesty, or defaulting to direct, honest feedback, even in difficult situations. The goal, he says, is to approach information sharing with this in mind: âHow can we tell as much of the truth as we possibly can?â This is especially critical in todayâs workplace, where information spreads quickly. As Jones sees it, âIf I donât tell the truth, someone else will.â
That said, he cautions business leaders to think carefully about their communications strategy and timing; how much information a leader parcels out and when can be just as important as the act of sharing. âItâs very similar to our personal relationships when we say, âIâll tell you about this sometime, just not right now,â â he says. In practice, a management team might choose to inform employees about an upcoming acquisition but keep the new companyâs name private until the deal is signed. This approach keeps employees in the know but guards against proprietary information leaking before the acquisition is finalized.

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Managing the current âcrisis of trustâ in the workplace
Natalia Martinez-Kalinina, an organizational psychologist and the general manager of Cambridge Innovation Center Miami, a coworking space for startups, says weâre currently suffering from a âgeneral crisis of trustâ in the workplace, and transparency is part of the solution.
While managing a group of sales, operations and customer service employees, Martinez-Kalinina strives to foster an ideal work environment by keeping her team informed of the protocols and processes she uses to make a decision. A 2018 study supports her approach, revealing that â80% of workers want to know more about how decisions are made in their organization.â
Slackâs own State of Work report, a global survey of 17,000 knowledge workers, revealed that workers are hungry for more transparency. In fact, those surveyed selected âmore transparency across the companyâ most frequently when asked what would help them feel more aligned with their employers. Workers even chose transparency over such options as more access to leadership and better workplace tools.
2. Encourage collaborationâand build the processes to support it
Collaboration is also key to creating the ideal work environment. Humans are social creatures, after all, and most of us thrive when weâre part of a high-performing team. Data from the State of Work survey supports this. Workers who rate their companies highly for collaboration are six times as likely as those who score their employers poorly for collaboration to report high workplace morale too. Additionally, workers at collaborative companies are seven times as likely to rate their overall workplace culture as âgoodâ or âexcellent.â In other words, highly collaborative workplaces also tend to have positive work environments and high employee morale.
âWe end up paying a price for collaboration, when we really should be getting dividends from it.â
Of course, good collaboration rarely happens by chance. When processes arenât in place to support it, collaboration tends to fall through the cracks, according to Martinez-Kalinina. Too often, she says, âwe throw some people in a room ⊠and think itâs going to be fine. We end up paying a price for collaboration, when we really should be getting dividends from it.â
Those dividends can impact a businessâs bottom line. In todayâs fast-paced workplace, âcollaboration is critical,â Martinez-Kalinina says. âCollaboration increases the speed of development.â And the faster a company can release new products and services or improve existing ones, the better.
Data from the State of Work survey shows that employees at collaborative companies are twice as likely as those at companies that rank poorly for collaboration to expect workforce and revenue growth. Suffice it to say that collaboration not only boosts morale, itâs also a boon for business outcomes.
3. The ideal work environment makes everyday tasks meaningful
Beyond investing in your internal communications strategy and fostering collaboration in the workplace, youâll also want to consider how workers view their roles and value. âNobody wants to feel superfluous,â says Roy Bahat, the head of Bloomberg Beta, an early-stage venture capital firm. âThe nobility of a line of work comes from its necessity.â People want to feel needed and necessary at work.
âEvery business involves emotion. The task of the leader is to find out what little bit is really exciting and convey it to the others.â
Though some jobs may seem more important than others on the surface, itâs really a matter of perspective, Jones says. He points to open heart surgery as a prime example. While the heart surgeon has superstar status, the nurses, anesthesiologist, internist and hospital staff play equally important roles. If anyone does not perform a job well, it could jeopardize the patientâs health. A successful operation depends on everyone doing his or her respective part near-perfectly.
To help workers connect with their value and meaning, Jones recommends tapping into our emotions. âEvery business involves emotion,â he says. âThe task of the leader is to find out what little bit is really exciting and convey it to the others.â He describes a BMW factory worker who finds value in giving people âthe ride of their livesâ when a new car rolls off the line. âYou can feel the emotion in that, canât you?â Jones says. When employees understand the end result and the big picture, they can more fully appreciate their contribution.
Create space for people to contribute
At Cambridge Innovation Center Miami, Martinez-Kalininaâs team is literally responsible for creating the ideal work environment. Her team ensures that the coworking space has everything its members need to do their best work, from chic meeting spaces to energizing snacks. Martinez-Kalinina offsets some of the more tedious tasks by âgiving people the space to contribute.â Specifically, she allocates time for each employee to pursue personal passion projects. âThe intention isnât to compensateâugh, you have these parts of your job that may not be exciting, and here you have a moment that is excitingâitâs not quite like that,â she says. âBut rather for you to feel like youâre showing up as a whole human.â
Case in point: One team member cares deeply about the creative economy and was encouraged to develop whatâs now called The Creatorâs Lounge, an event where local creatives come together to showcase their work and engage with the community. Another team member pursued her passion for leadership development by hosting mentoring sessions. These projects give employees an opportunity to connect their work with whatever holds meaning for them.
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This article was originally posted here: https://slackhq.com/creating-the-ideal-work-environment