Your work environment matters

TLDR;

• The conversation around where we work, how we work and when we work has become more and more important since the pandemic, when many businesses were forced to close their offices and for the first time allow their teams to work from home.

• Now, employers are considering different ways they can ensure that workplaces are attractive and encourage people to come in, because we know that a healthy working environment allows for happy employees.

So now that we have hybrid working as a result of the Covid pandemic, surely we've got it all sorted? No, not quite. It is still really important the businesses maintain a sense of company culture, and whilst many of us remain in the office with our colleagues, many of us have chosen to remain at home - which can pose difficulties when it comes to inclusion and culture.

Company culture is very much about how a business makes its people feel, both in its physical spaces and virtually, whilst at home.

What is work environment and why is it so important?

There's a big difference between a healthy workplace and a toxic one, and it's pretty easy to spot if you're in either camp. A toxic workplace can play a huge role for your mental and physical health, never mind your overall job satisfaction. Having a healthy workplace not only ensure that your employees feel safe, secure (one of an employer's main duty of care) but also if we get the foundational things correct, we can then move on to empowering our teams to come to work as their best selves and produce their best work.

1. Make it comfortable

A recent exhibit at the V&A made a significant impact on me – and many others – by demonstrating what lays ahead for office workers if we continue to force ourselves to function in uncomfortable environments. Let me introduce you to the life-sized model, Emma, who illustrates the physical impact of poor office working conditions on our bodies:

It’s vital that companies consider how the physical workplace environment supports people’s health. How best can we optimise that “user experience” to make sure that everyone is comfortable, with ergonomic seating and so on? So often, people can forget that job satisfaction relies on physical comfort alongside other, more intangible considerations.

Consider how much natural light you receive in your workplace. Is it enough? As humans, we’re guided by daylight, and being shut away in the dark robs us of our chance to “photosynthesise” – or at least for our body clock to know what’s going on. Losing this can make us grouchy and unhappy at work. It can impact your sleep, too – meaning your productivity drops.

One reason we enjoy working from home is because we feel comfortable there, so how can we bring that to the office space? Allowing for individuality is really important. There’s a reason people love to keep photos and trinkets on their desks. Even if you have a hot-desking system, having elements of personality around just makes people feel happier. Perhaps you could try adding everyone's pictures to the wall? 2. Bring your culture to life

I don’t think many businesses consider simple things like saying “good morning”. I make a point of saying hello or goodbye to as many people as I possibly can when I’m in the office. You may as well be at home if you’re not going to say hello. This is something people in leadership positions should consider, especially if they’re hiring lots of young people. Employees copy what they see – so embody your company values and normalise friendly behaviour wherever and whenever you can.

Hearing people laughing and chatting is important: it means people enjoy coming in. It fosters creativity and teamwork, as people feel more encouraged to share ideas with each other and spark better ones. It’s also great for general bonding and workplace cohesion as people feel more comfortable around each other.

On a similar note, one of the other valuable things about being in the office is the possibility of spontaneous moments: conversations that you wouldn’t have while working from home and scheduling specific Zoom calls for your interactions. It means work is less likely to get siloed, but it also is great for our mental health and team building, as we can feel more free to ‘be ourselves’, rather than only talking about work.

This communication is something leaders should encourage through the physical workspace, too. Some companies have a hot-desking system, so that every employee sits with different people each time they come in. You could mix this with having set team days in the office, so that they have the opportunity to collaborate in-person with our team, but also get to know other employees from different areas of the business.

3. Check-in with your colleagues and make it regular!

More and more, workers are empowered to ask for what they want from their employers. Gen Z in particular are more comfortable when being vocal about what they expect from their workplaces, and they have interesting things to say.

For employees, regular check-ins with your manager are well known to be vital for helping you to grow, find your purpose and feel part of a functioning team, as well as tackling issues like burnout. But the channels of communication can and should go both ways. Discussions on workplace goings-on should never be off the table, and opening yourself up to receive positive – and negative! – feedback means People Teams can evaluate and improve the work environment all the time.

We recommend hosting employee engagement surveys, and offering monthly “ask us anything” sessions with your People & Culture team or business leaders, which is dedicated time set aside for employees to (you’ve guessed it) ask us anything. This is one of the ways we are able to democratise conversations and decision-making around the business, and provide extra clarity to anyone who needs it.

Having this kind of openness means we’re able to create a relaxed atmosphere around our office, where people feel heard – and we can take on board suggestions to improve the workplace environment even further.

4. Prioritise connection

We've spoken about fostering openness and spontaneity. But a huge factor of building a space where people are encouraged to collaborate and communicate is connection. There’s no point in having a hot-desking setup if the layout of the office itself means people still feel cut off when they need to work as a team. This is why we'd always recommend an open-plan office space.

But connection in the workplace environment goes further than this. People need to be able to communicate easily in order to find the workplace to be a comfortable space – but studies also show that many people enjoy sitting in sheltered locations, such as having your back to the wall. It caters to the caveman instinct to keep secure. You should therefore ensure that the physical set-up of your workplace caters to this trait, too.

One key way to strike this balance is to make sure that no one has their back to the majority of the room. No one wants to miss out on the action, after all: they’re either going to keep spinning around to look at what’s going on – and therefore not really working – or they’re going to feel left out of things.

Rather than making people feel closed off, taking the desire for shelter into consideration in this way can actually help create more connection. It minimises the temptation to huddle to your screen in response to feeling ‘exposed’; by making employees feel comfortable in their space, we can make sure they feel more encouraged to talk and connect with the rest of the room.

Connection in the workspace can also mean that the physical space feels connected to the kind of work you need to do. This is why we'd suggest having different sized meeting rooms and breakout areas where possible, so that the space can support different activities. This is vital if you want your employees to be able to feel comfortable in an environment that allows them to work easily together, and still thrive individually.

5. Think of work environment as a "user journey"

It’s easy to think of the ‘workplace environment’ as the room (or rooms) in which you do your work, and consider the user experience in these spaces to be the single priority. But I would encourage leaders to take a more holistic view of the workplace when contemplating ways they can improve the environment for employees.

Consider the entire “user journey” of the office. One great example is access: how are your employees entering the building? Choosing between a lift that has to stop at many other floors before reaching the office, or climbing multiple flights of stairs in large office blocks, can be a nuisance – especially after a rubbish train journey: employees are starting the day feeling dishevelled, or worse still, they’re unable to access the floor at all.

What does the next part of the journey look like? How do employees enter the office – do they enter via a sociable space, or are they slinking into a dark corner, unnoticed?

I’ve mentioned above the need for confidential spaces. But something that’s important not to overlook is bathrooms. Your main workspace may be great, but if the bathroom is horrible, people will dread spending long stretches in the office. The bathroom isn’t just there to meet our bodily needs: many people use it as a quick break to reframe their thoughts or have a moment to rest. It’s important that the bathroom location facilitates this, so people feel comfortable using them.

This is something that also gets forgotten when we talk about the workplace environment: the way it allows for rest. Going to get a cup of tea is a classic example of how office workers will take quick breaks to help them refocus on tasks and rejuvenate themselves. The layout and features of the space should support this.

6. Respect personal environments These days, you could argue that the workplace environment extends to the space in which employees conduct remote work, too. However, I’ve been careful to mainly focus on the in-office environment in this article, as it’s important that leaders are respectful of their employees’ personal spaces. We must strike the right balance between making employees feel connected regardless of location, but not physically inserting your company into employees’ home lives.

Companies can and should consider the support they provide for remote and hybrid workers, to make sure they are set up to work well from their home environment. It’s not unusual for companies to provide laptops. But what are companies’ responsibilities in 2022? One idea could be looking at company policies for supporting electricity or internet provider bills.

On this subject, however, it’s important to note that companies should resist stipulating a particular at-home setup for remote workers. This is impractical and short-sighted: you’ll put off great employees, who will choose to work for a company that does not overly influence their home lives.

Of course, workplace communication takes place when working from home, too. It’s vital that we use the right tools for this: software like Slack allows employees to stay in touch easily, and features such as the delay-send function can mean that private time is still protected. Meanwhile, web solutions such as Notion are a great way to keep employees organised and store all the company information in an easy-to-navigate space. Nurturing our human interactions is so important. A healthy environment at work allows for a better work-life balance. Employees shouldn’t have to feel constantly available, because they should be able to interact sufficiently while at work. That’s one of the benefits of a strong workplace culture. Key Takeaways Cultivating a positive environment in the workplace is a mixture of your employee interactions and physical setup. It’s easy to focus too much on one over the other – but they play into one another more than you might think.

We focus a lot on the user journey when considering customer interactions with our company or products, so there’s never any argument that a flowing, easy journey there should be a priority for businesses to develop. So why not extend that thinking to our offices, and the experiences of our workers?

We know that Gen Z are more upfront about what they expect of the businesses they support as customers, and our first-hand experience (alongside plenty of studies) show that they have high expectations of their employers, too. To attract the best young talent to your business, it’s more important than ever to cater to their needs.

The truth is, offices have gotten away with not being inspiring, for far too long. Part of that has to do with lack of visibility: until recently, the office was a fact of working life that was not up for debate, so we didn’t discuss it as much. But now the workspace is in the spotlight, it’s up to us to use this sudden scrutiny to improve our work lives.

We suspect the reason many children dream of being a doctor, fireman, or ballet dancer is because they can see them at work. Until now, for young people coming into an office environment for the first time, it has been harder to judge whether what they encounter is good, bad or the norm. There’s no benchmark. But I see this changing. Gen Z are a “generation of researchers” after all: we foresee a reality where this powerful group can assess the workplace environment and make value judgments about the company from it.

Is this somewhere they’d like to work? If the answer is no, you’ll miss out. Workplaces are always evolving: you couldn’t imagine working in an ‘80s cubicle anymore, and so much of what we understand as factors of a good working environment are relatively new concepts. The pandemic has brought a paradigm shift in the way we view our office environments, but by listening to our employees about what helps them to thrive, and not being afraid to implement changes, we can ensure that our workplace remains a healthy and positive space to be in.