Creating Pleasant Working Environments

In working life, there are many factors that affect productivity and work efficiency. One of the most important among these is the working environment. A pleasant working environment makes employees feel happy and comfortable, increasing their motivation and improving their work performance. In this article, we will examine the reasons and consequences of creating a pleasant working environment and also examine how to create a pleasant working environment in remote working models by not coming to the workplace.

What is a Pleasant Working Environment?

Creating a pleasant working environment in professional life has a positive meaning in the eyes of employees. This positive meaning is that employees can feel happy and motivated. In such an environment, there is open and positive communication between employees, resulting in high collaboration. Employees can also feel that they are supported in every sense while doing their jobs. Such a working environment manifests itself under the following three headings:

Physical Working Environment: In a clean, tidy working environment designed to suit the needs of employees, employees will feel comfortable and peaceful, and this will have a positive impact on business results. Creating a physical environment that will optimize both work time and rest time, in line with the requirements of the job, is very important for a pleasant working environment.

Social Working Environment: Employees' expectations from a pleasant working environment are not only based on physical needs. A social working environment also means a pleasant working environment. It is important to create a work environment where employees respect and support each other and where cooperation and communication are high, in order to enjoy work.

Management Style: Leaders have a lot of impact on the work environment. No matter how high the physical facilities are, it is not possible for employees to enjoy a working environment where the management style does not support positivity. Creating a transparent and reliable management style in which employees' opinions and ideas are valued is a very important requirement for pleasant working environments.

Some Examples from Business Life

Technology companies come to the fore when it comes to creating pleasant working environments with a comfortable, development- and creativity-oriented approach.

The flexibility and freedom that Google provides to employees to be creative is one of the most important effects on employees' enjoyment of their work. However, Google offices are designed in a way that employees can work comfortably. Giving importance to creating spaces where employees can work comfortably, rest and socialize helps employees enjoy the time they spend at work. In addition, Google also attaches importance to the psychological needs of its employees and implements various recognition and reward programs to ensure that employees feel valued and appreciated. All these initiatives also show themselves in Google's employee surveys.

Another company that stands out in this regard is Netflix. The company supports its employees to work efficiently and creatively in a pleasant working environment with the wide range of flexibility and personal development support programs it offers. The approaches they adopt as a culture:

* Encourage decision-making by employees

* Share information openly, broadly and deliberately

* Communicate candidly and directly

* Keep only our highly effective people

* Avoid rules

In addition, frequent surveys are beneficial for Netflix to monitor their employees' perspectives on work and take actions on this issue, while also making employees feel valued.

Impacts of Hybrid and Remote Working

We have examined above that a pleasant working environment depends only on physical factors, and that social factors and management style are also very important to create a positive working environment. Due to the increasing hybrid and remote working at work, the effect of physical interventions to create a positive and enjoyable working environment is expected to gradually decrease. It becomes even more important to create a social working environment and to create an effective management style so that teams working in different locations, having physical contact for a long time, enjoy their work. Even if it is not physically possible, increasing socialization through different practices and establishing strong communication between employees, applying management styles that will support the flexibility and autonomy demanded by employees with increasing remote working will gain more importance in creating a positive working environment.

Results of a Pleasant Working Environment

Creating pleasant working environments reflects positively on business results by reducing many negative effects that employees face in their professional lives. In this way, work efficiency increases and productivity increases, employees' stress decreases and possible burnout is prevented, employee loyalty increases with increased job satisfaction, and loss of talent and experience decreases. In this way, the level of creativity and innovation in the work increases and, as a result, increases customer satisfaction.

Academic research on this subject also confirms the results listed above. More than 600,000 employees from more than 500 companies in the USA participated in the research titled "The State of Employee Engagement in North America 2015". This study examined the relationship between employees' job engagement and a positive work environment. Accordingly, creating a positive work environment means that employees It increases job loyalty by 20%. The increase in employees' loyalty to the company also positively affects their motivation, trust in their teammates and, ultimately, performance.

As noted in the research above, leaders play a key role in creating a positive work environment. Leaders who provide an environment of open communication, autonomy, positive feedback and fairness are the main catalysts that create a positive work environment.