Work Environment: importance and tips to improve it

What is the work environment? What are the benefits of a good organizational environment? How to measure it? These are all questions that we will analyze in the following article and will help you discover opportunities for improvements that will not only increase well-being among your collaborators, but will also help you identify low points to work on to make your organization even better. productive. 

What is the work environment?

The work environment is the emotional environment within an organization and is essential for talent retention. This can increase or affect productivity, or motivate or discourage the performance of collaborators. In the words of Hodgetts and Altman, the work environment is:

“A set of characteristics of the workplace, perceived by the individuals who work in that place and serve as a primary force to influence their work behavior.”

Behavior in Organizations, Hodgetts and Altman.

In addition, The work or organizational climate is a perception that is created from the interactions between all members of the company.. This includes factors such as interpersonal relationships, communication, type of leadership, organizational culture, among many other aspects. 

For this reason, companies are becoming increasingly important in creating and maintaining a positive work environment. This task is usually carried out by the area of Human Resources. The benefits of a friendly organizational culture that can be transmitted to new members of the organization are many. However, what are these? Below we explain.

Benefits of a positive work environment

A positive work environment goes beyond getting along with co-workers. As we mentioned before, this considers different factors that will lead to a good organizational climate. This will bring benefits that benefit both the employee and the company.. Among the advantages of a positive work environment for the collaborator you can find:

• Increased productivity and creativity.
• The growth of workers' sense of happiness.
• Greater mental health. 
• Increased sense of belonging. 

Meanwhile, the benefits of a positive work environment for the company are:

• Increased productivity and profitability.
• Less employee turnover.
• Greater talent retention.
• It will reduce sick leave due to stress.

You already know that the work environment can have a significant impact on the emotional and psychological well-being of employees, their motivation and work performance. You also know that this has a great role in talent retention and the general success of the organization, but then how do you know if your organization has a good or bad work environment? The answer to this is a work environment survey. Next, we will tell you what a work environment survey is and how to measure this factor.

Work Environment Survey

A work environment survey is a measurement tool that evaluates the degree of satisfaction and well-being of employees. Its objective is to collect specific data on the perception in the organization of the people who work in it. From this process, you can obtain two conclusions, a positive or negative work environment.

A positive organizational environment will be characterized by being a space with open and effective communication, with collaborative work, effective and empathetic leadership with its teams, opportunities for professional growth and development, and a safe and healthy work environment. A negative work environment, on the other hand, will have poor communication, authoritarian leadership, a bad culture, and an unhealthy work dynamic.

To know which of the two your organization is in, you must measure different aspects, such as:

• Forms of work.
• Communication between collaborators.
• Problem management.
• Performance of direct management and leadership.
• Job development opportunities.
• Organizational culture.

So how do you keep moving forward? At this point you can break down each aspect into 3 or 5 questions that will help you draw a conclusion from each one. To help you even more in this process, we want to give you 4 valuable tips that will make this evaluation easier.

4 tips for conducting a work environment survey

A work environment survey has different parts and aspects. However, what things should you consider in all of them? In the following list, we leave you 4 tips so that you can have a job survey from which to extract valuable information that you can work with in the future.

1- Take anonymous surveys

Conducting anonymous surveys will help you get more transparent responses that can provide unbiased information about the organization. It is common for employees to fear retaliation if they comment on their bosses or specific situations. To take care of these details, we recommend doing a single general survey in which collaborators can enter details in text fields. 

2- Ask questions that everyone can understand

In the previous point we mentioned that it is important that you can make a single survey to send to all collaborators. Regarding this, it is essential that everyone can understand the same thing in these questions. We advise you to use simple and understandable language that is transversal to all positions in the company.

3- Question with purpose

Each question in your work environment survey should have a reason. To do this, you must always identify what you want to know or what information you should get. With this in mind, write each question and thus, once this process is completed, it will be easier for you to deal with any problems that this evaluation reveals. Read more about this in the next point.

4- Take action on the matter

Ok, you already did the work environment survey and you have results, but now what? This point refers to the fact that there is little point in carrying out this process without taking action. 

From the results of this survey you will not only be able to increase the general well-being of employees, or improve the work environment in the organization. You will also be able to identify strengths and weaknesses in different areas that are potential opportunities for improvement in processes that perhaps were not as optimal as you thought. However, what happens if the organizational climate is indeed in crisis? Below we tell you how you can improve it.

Work environment: how to improve it

A good work environment in an organization, as we already mentioned, can benefit or affect various aspects of it. Given a negative work environment result, all is not lost. Below, we leave you a table with improvement actions for each aspect to evaluate:

Evaluated aspect	Improvement actions
Forms of work	– SMART objective approaches.  – Short, medium or long-term planning (as appropriate). – Job performance evaluations.
Communication between collaborators	– Determine official communication channels.  – Periodic meetings (depending on the nature of the work). – Training in effective communication or soft skills.
Problem management	– Provide constructive feedback spaces. – Generates opportunities for team conflict resolution. – Perform a SWOT analysis. – Poses a strategy Organizational development.
Performance of management and leadership	– Coaching to managers. – Crisis management training. – Soft skills courses.
Job Development Opportunities	– Surveys of job development expectations. – Diagnosis or Capacitation needs' detection. – Annual training plans.
Organizational culture	– Offsite or out-of-office activities (optional). – Be flexible in the event of employee problems. – Recognize and reward good work.

With this, you will not only be measuring the work environment of your organization, but, even better, you will be taking action against possible problems that you had not identified. As a last tip, remember that it is advisable to do this process once a year to have an updated view of the work environment.