Most of the time of our day, we spend at workplace. Therefore, it becomes of utmost importance to maintain a healthy work environment. In our today’s blog, we shall review the benefits of working in a healthy workplace. American Psychological Association’s statistics have shown that organizations spend nearly more than 500 billion dollars out of the US economy due to workplace stress. It also revealed that it costs around 550 million workdays as employees take more leaves due to stressful working environments.
A report published in Forbes by Global studies revealed that 79% of people quit their jobs because of a lack of appreciation for their hard work and efforts.
A survey by The American Institute of Stress has depicted that stressful jobs caused nearly 120,000 deaths and resulted in an expense of 190 billion dollars in healthcare per year.
Providing a healthy work environment can benefit an employer in the below ways:
Let’s delve deeper to understand each aspect of a healthy environment at work.
Reduced Absenteeism: The obvious benefit of having a healthy work environment is having fewer employees absent. Investing in health and wellness programs can help employers increase the number of employees in the office every day.
Better Revenue Generated: As absenteeism of employees will reduce, there will be more workforce every day to work on the tasks and meet the deadlines. As a result, the organization may find an escalation in revenue with the employees’ continuous efforts.
Improved Employee Retention: By simply promoting good health and a positive work environment, you as an employer can find a reduction in employee turnover and be able to retain your employees for longer.
Stronger Relationships: A healthy and happy work environment promotes open communication. This leads to better relationships among employees, colleagues, managers, and employers.
Positive Public Image: If your employees work in a positive environment, your business will likely have a more positive public image. After all, it is not only about employees. Your customers hold equal significance in taking your business to new heights. They expect you to be professional as well as socially responsible. Besides, your employees will also give positive feedback about the organization, which may help attract a productive workforce.
A healthy work environment can benefit employees in the following ways:
Let’s delve deeper to understand each aspect of a healthy environment at work.
Improved Productivity: In a positive work culture, employees are likely to exceed expectations and stick around their tasks. When employees are appreciated for performing their job well, they feel motivated to work hard. As a consequence, they become more productive at work and work dedicatedly. Gallup’s State of American Workplace report has found that organizations with higher employee engagement see 17 percent greater productivity in their employees than before.
More Focused: When employees work in a healthy environment, they tend to be more attentive and focused on their work because no pressure on the mind could interfere with their interest in the task.
Better Morale: Having a stress-free work environment can boost an employee’s morale also. Going on occasional team outings or just a get-together can encourage the staff to work happily and relaxed.
Improved Quality of Life: If your employee is happy while working at your business, you add years to his/her life. When you recognize your workforce’s efforts, give them flexible office hours, offer other essential benefits, you are enhancing their job satisfaction.
Reduced Risk of Health Issues: Sitting all day long in front of screens and the stress of meeting deadlines could lead to pathetic health conditions. Introducing a wellness program in your organization can help your employees minimize backache problems, improve sleep patterns, and maintain overall health. This helps the employees in being available at work more than before.
What are the causes of a toxic work environment?
A toxic work environment is one of the major reasons behind stress among employees. The causes that lead to a toxic environment include:
Lack of recognition: Lack of recognition in the organizations can disappoint many employees who may leave the organization, and the employer may lose its assets.
Favoritism: Being favorable to some employees and sidelining the rest of the workforce also causes a stressful working environment. Employees may feel a lack of motivation at work.
Lack of leadership: Bad behavior of the employer or managers like not supporting the team, not understanding the employee’s requirement, or scolding the employee always instead of appreciating at any point of time can lead to bad work culture. Leaders play a vital role here to develop positive work culture.
Consistent peer pressure: Peer pressure at work is another leading cause of poor work culture. Sometimes, seeing other employees performing better than the rest of the workforce can create an inferiority complex. This causes an unnecessary burden on the minds of the employees and causes a turbulent workplace.
Lack of communication: Poor policies or lack of communication can contribute to mistrust and a bad working environment. Failing to listen or playing a blame game, or communicating through emails only without talking face to face can be causes of an unhealthy workplace.
What are the signs of a toxic work culture?
A strong company culture leads to the company’s success and longevity. However, toxic work culture can impact an employee’s health and impact the business. Below are the common signs of toxic work culture:
Lack of Investment in People: It is said that investing in your employees comes back to the organization healthy. Human resources must keep clear communication with the new hire to play the safe deal for themselves and the new hire. If there is a lack of communication, it can lead to negative results.
Lack of Accountability: If the employees are under the impression that there are no consequences of their actions, they may use it unfairly to justify their side. Organizations must keep track of keeping the accountability of the tasks to ensure the performance of the employees.
Lack of Ethics and Inclusion: Equality, ethics, gender discrimination, play a good favor for many, but deserving people may remain unfulfilled. Lack of equity and inclusion poses a work culture risk. Employers must take stringent actions to fix unhealthy norms and behaviors.
Lack of Good Conduct: Poor behavior is among one of the most significant signs of a toxic environment. A survey has found that nearly one-third of employees are unhappy with their managers and have quit the job because of their misconduct.
Lack of Support: When employees have to work under high pressure without any management support, they feel demotivated. As a result, they cannot work productively, and their performance foes down despite having immense subject knowledge.
The Bottom Line
As we can see from the blog that stressful workplaces may lead to drastic consequences, it is suggested that employers and human resources departments should join hands to support the mental health of their employees.
