You go to work every day. After doing it for a while, you start to gloss over certain areas of the office that need improvement. You just get used to them. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Well, that’s just the problem. Offices can easily become stale and unimaginative, and sure, there’s no fight breaking out every other day, but there might also be no place for your employees to develop their creativity.
You may not even realize you’re stifling your employees’ productivity. If your actions are on their way to breaking your company, perhaps you should start to act.
Where Employees Go to Stop Dreaming
Adults are faced with the hard task of going to work every day. They can come up with a hundred reasons not to get out of bed and report to the office, but they manage to drag themselves out because of the salary they won’t earn if they skip a day. Even if they can force themselves to get to work, for now, the stress will eventually lead to burnout and they will feel less inclined to perform well. It’s not even because of severe problems. The mere state of the office could be enough to make them lose their interest in their job.
The creativity of the office manifests in several places. You can spend money on commercial landscaping services to make the exteriors of the office look more welcoming. Your employees can either go to work being welcomed by staleness or they could be energized from the beautiful Gaithersburg landscape that greets them. Think of it as your company wearing nice clothes. Who doesn’t feel inspired when they see something beautiful?
Manpower Remains as the Company’s Most Valuable Asset
Say what you will about robots replacing people and automation becoming the go-to for repetitive tasks, but for the crucial parts of business operations, you will still rely on humans. You spend time and effort to hire the best employees from Gaithersburg, so why are you treating them like incapable children?
The worst thing you can do to your company is to treat your employees like they don’t know what they’re doing. They have the qualifications you required for their job description, but they will not be able to perform their best if you keep second-guessing them and taking away their opportunities. Sure, the software may be foolproof, but the human component is what makes a company real and able to communicate with customers at a deeper level.
Addressing the Disconnect
You’re at the top of the company ladder and you get to enjoy the perks and fruits of your labor. You have a spacious office and do not have to spend time at the pantry with everyone else during lunch. You get all-expense-paid trips for business purposes. Meanwhile, your employees have to take public transport to get to work each day. They have to make ends meet because their salary is significantly less than what you make.
Your employees get to talk to each other every day, but you may rarely get the chance to talk to them. That makes you a distant figure, and it makes your attention seem scary. When you notice someone, they think it’s either because of a really good or a really bad thing. Employees don’t feel comfortable around you, which only widens the disconnect.
Above all other issues in the company, this is something you should address as soon as possible. Having an approachable employer makes employees feel comfortable in the office. If they’re not busy watching every step they make around you, they’ll be more open to contributing ideas and trying new things.
We still have a long way to go before robots can successfully replace humans on all fronts — if that will happen at all. At the end of the day, nothing beats the human connection, and feeding employee creativity is what makes humans thrive even more.
