The New Year is just an arbitrary date on the calendar, but it brings with it a spirit of change, renewed
energy, and a commitment to make this year better than the last. Herein lies an opportunity for you as a manager to implement an initiative to make a more positive and
productive workplace for your team.
One of my favorite business-related quotes, “It is hard to
warm up to cold efficiency,” comes from Al Golin, a noted
expert on the role of trust in the modern corporation. Cold
efficiency is detrimental to your organization's long-term (and
sometimes even short-term) goals and can result in a cold and
impersonal work environment. Here are 12 low-cost activities
for 2007—one for each month—that you can use to build a
more personal, enjoyable, and productive workplace.
January—Free Food
Most people enjoy an occasional morning break with a spread of doughnuts,
muffins, or bagels with coffee and juice.
For less than $30, you can provide a continental breakfast for a small-to-midsized
team. Give your team members a midmorning break from
their work and a chance to get together informally for a few
minutes. Do this once a week, and for only $1500 a year, you'll
see a return in goodwill and bonding.
February—Transparency
Few things will destroy a team's trust
like a lack of transparency in the workplace. Opacity in the workplace can
also lead to unhealthy rumors and innuendo. In February, have a talk with members
of your team about areas of the company they believe are
overly opaque. You might find people asking for information about compensation structures, for example, or wanting to know exactly what they can do to earn a promotion.
Team members might even ask you to clarify your goals as a
manager. Together, determine how some, if not all, of these
areas can be made more transparent. Be sure to follow up
with your team on each idea that's suggested.
March—Brown Bag Lunch
To front-line employees, senior management can all too often become dehumanized and can more closely resemble Dilbert's
pointy-haired boss or Catbert than real people. Start a
quarterly event in which senior employees—both executive
management and senior individual contributors—share
stories about their careers, perspectives on the business,
and other words of wisdom over lunch with your team.
The best executives will welcome your initiative and jump
at the chance to have an informal conversation with some
of the troops.
April—Low Hanging Fruit
Work with your team to come up with
some simple, low- to no-cost benefits
that would make the workplace more
enjoyable. These benefits might be anything from schedule changes to basic culture adjustments.
For example, your team might ask whether Friday could be
reserved as a no-meeting day or request that meetings not be
held before 9 a.m. or after 4 p.m. so that team members can be
more flexible with respect to school schedules. Think of things
that can be implemented easily without requiring outside
permission or resources, and implement as many as you can.
Small changes such as these convey to team members how
much you value them and show the importance you place
on their well-being and satisfaction with work.
May—Encourage Positive Interactions
It might sound corny—right
out of Leave It to Beaver—but
encouraging positive interactions
within your team is essential when
you're trying to create a warm work
environment. As the manager, you need to set the tone
and be the example. Almost all successful managers
who are well-liked praise their employees generously
and publicly and give criticism privately. Eliminate
“no, but” conversations that unconstructively criticize
ideas or respond to them negatively. In their place, create
“yes, and” conversations in which employees build on
one another's ideas and work. When someone on your
team brings up an idea, thank him or her for the idea
and open a discussion with your team about how the goal
could be accomplished using that idea or some other
mechanism.
June—Get Outside
We spend an unnatural
amount of time indoors.
In the first month of
summer, move your team
outside as often as you can. Instead of sitting in a boring office, have walking meetings with members of your team, or
move a staff meeting outside, if you have a
place for everyone to sit. (You might want to
make this an October or November activity if
you're in Phoenix or someplace similar where
June temperatures can be 108 degrees.)
July—Create
Opportunities
for Long
Weekends
July is the heart of summer: The days are long and
warm, and most kids are out of
school. Everyone appreciates an occasional long
weekend, especially at this time of the year. See
how creative you can be with your team's schedule to give your employees opportunities for long
weekends. For example, your team might like to
work an hour or two longer Monday through
Thursday in return for leaving early on Friday or
taking the day off, or the team might like to start
early and leave early on certain days. If you can
swing it, try to give an occasional complimentary
day off; this is a great and welcome reward for
completing a particularly difficult project.
August—Don't Take
Yourself Too
Seriously
The longest stretch of the
year without a three-day
holiday weekend is from the
Fourth of July to Labor Day. In August, add a
goal to your team's mission: Challenge team
members to not take themselves too seriously.
Ask your team what about the company is too
serious, such as corporate policies that impose
arbitrary restrictions that don't affect business.
For example, at one company that I recently
visited, management tried to “preserve a professional-looking work environment” by prohibiting employees from hanging anything,
whether work related or personal, on the walls
of their cubicles. The message being conveyed
was that the building was more important than the people who worked in it. To loosen things
up, you might implement, say, a contest to see
who can create the best parody of the company
slogan. Whatever you do, just make it fun.
September—
Bring Your
Family to
Work Day
Many workplaces observe Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day
on the fourth Thursday in April. Expand on
the idea in the fall with an afternoon or evening event. Have your team members invite
their families to the office for food, drinks,
and games. Like many of the other ideas
here, this event not only gives team members
an opportunity to have fun and get to know
one other better, but extends the bonding
and sense of community to their families.
October—
Harvest Time
November and December are big—and
often stressful—months
for family gatherings. Instead of—or in addition to—throwing a
holiday party, which often adds to holiday-season pressures, host a harvest party for your
team members and their families. Find an
apple orchard or pumpkin farm where you
can have a nice, low-key fall picnic or hold a
Halloween event complete with bobbing for
apples, pumpkin carving, and prizes for costumed kids.
November—Giving Thanks
Work with your team
to find an activity in
which every member
can participate to give
something back to the community. A volunteer
project fits in with the spirit of the season, raises
your company's profile in the community, and
helps your team members feel better about
the community in which they live. Challenge
your company to match your team's efforts by
letting other employees volunteer some time during a work day or making a contribution to
the charity your team supports. For some ideas
on what your team can do for the community,
see “4 IT Resolutions for the New Year,” January
2006, InstantDoc ID 48398.
December—Make 2008 Better Than
2007
In December, talk to
your team about how it
can make 2008 better than
2007, how it can become more productive, and
what can be done to make coming to work
everyday more enjoyable for everyone. Find
out what activities worked well in 2007 and
which ones didn't. Then, taking that feedback
into consideration, start planning your 2008
activities.
Work and Play
Of course, fiscal responsibility and accomplishing objectives are important for all companies, but the resulting push for efficiency can
make a company's best assets—its employees—unhappy. Building a warmer, friendlier
work environment will pay off in employees
who enjoy coming to work and who are more
willing to pitch in to accomplish a goal or
meet a deadline. As a manager, you'll find that
recruiting high-performing employees is a lot
easier if you've established a reputation for
being a great person to work for. Giving your
team a reason to look forward to coming to
work is a worthwhile management objective,
and who knows—you might even find yourself
enjoying work more!
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