Whether your company is big or small, creating workplace excitement for your employees is your key to success. When your employees actually enjoy being in the office, your teams become more productive overall and are more likely to stay at your company longer. But how do you create a work atmosphere with happy employees?
Starting a new job can be intimidating, but making sure new employees find themselves in a fun work environment will help retain them and decrease overall turnover. Find ways to make the office inclusive, even as a large company! (In fact, it’s even more important as companies become larger.) Google, for example, finds ways to make opportunities for creating an inclusive environment for its thousands of employees through a simple greeting. Taking the time to stop by a new employee’s desk to say “Welcome to my team!” can increase productivity by as much as 15%, according to Google.
Happy hour
When you have a group of new employees, get them together and host a happy hour, go to a sporting event, or do something fun and unique like axe throwing (the TransitScreen marketing team can confirm that one’s a hit). No matter which you pick, the goal is to show people you care about them joining your team and want them to feel comfortable in the office. As we’ve mentioned before, this doesn’t mean you have to become best friends with everyone you hire or give someone those expectations, but it does mean people should feel able to socialize in a friendly way.
As your company grows, it becomes increasingly imperative to create a collaborative and inclusive home away from home that encourages your employees to create friendships with each other and improve their working relationships. Some larger companies accomplish this by implementing open work areas, cafeterias with long lunch tables, and hot desking.
In-office competition
Another good morale booster is an in-office competition. For both sports enthusiasts and everyone else, you have an opportunity to create some office banter and community every season. March Madness brackets, fantasy football, and even brackets for the Masters, MLB, and the World Cup. These are all great ways to get a certain number of non-work conversations flowing in the office, helping your employees relax and unplug from their computers (because that’s actually not so great for their health).
Competitions could also be directly tied to work. Maybe people need that extra push to hit quota, so try introducing a goal at the beginning of the day, and if the goal is met, everyone is rewarded. Maybe a 4 p.m. pizza party, a $10 coffee shop gift card, or just letting everyone leave early to get their weekends started. Holding competitions like this regularly can improve organization and productivity in the office without people even realizing it!
These are just a few ways that you can make your office a fun environment where people want to come to work every day. As the job market grows more and more competitive, you have to adapt and create the environments today’s employees are demanding.
