Towards building a Constructive Work Environment.

An often-overlooked aspect of creating a healthy work environment is transparency in communication. Working in a phenomenal organization with hundreds of thoughtful people and not being able to say what you believe is right might have a setback on how you operate.

Generally, people who feel their voice is heard at work are more likely to be driven to do better. A person in the finance department might resolve a client’s issue on which you've been stuck for days, a person from the operations team might apprise you of how there is a loophole in the legal policies of the company, and an intern might give you a life lesson. The key to getting the best out of your team is to have an open and safe environment where people can speak freely and are open to criticism. Irrespective of where they stand in the hierarchical structure of the organization, their salary, or their background, it's their personality, perception, and reaction that matters.

Evaluating a person based on their experience, or lack thereof, is wrong. The mindset that if a person is coming from a larger number of experiences will always be right needs to change. Not considering the creative idea of a newbie should not be acceptable. Ascertaining a prudential candidate and not recruiting them plainly because their experience is yet to be ‘boastful of’, is as detrimental as detecting a variant and not taking the requisite medication because it’s new on the block. Intuition and innovation don’t need a validation stamp of years and numbers. Normalizing things which are not appropriate simply because they’ve been going on from the beginning is a crack that needs to be filled. So, how can we transform our organization from within to encourage a healthy environment?

The crux of the discussion about creating a healthy work environment circles back to having an open and honest conversation. A bidirectional communication channel that goes beyond regular meetings ensures the employees’ opinions are taken into account. Encouraging people to speak & come up with fresh initiatives by hosting interactive sessions may create a more progressive work environment. However, reviews need not always be filled with praise. A significant number of employees feel negative criticism is crucial to their improvement, as it illustrates areas that need work.

It’s significant to concentrate on how we, as leaders, are coming to the table with ideas to continuously enhance our social culture and adapt to the ever-evolving world. Low transparency between different levels of management causes disparity and disruptions and hence should be minimal. For an organization to keep up with the times, the junior-most employees must be able to voice their opinions out. A junior employee’s avenue to drive their opinion forward is as important as the senior’s avenue to provide feedback.