Corporate Culture: Five Factors That Create Productive Workplace

When talking about work environments, almost always Google's model comes up as the perfect example of modern innovative workplace and in how entities should treat and govern their employees. However, what is usually omitted or being forgotten in Google's model is the company's location (Silicon Valley, San Francisco), which might considered as IT's and IS's "haven" and it is a target of many technical specialists as the city offers quality welfare and attractive public environment. As a result, there are certain unrecognised factors that could determine a successful corporate culture and help an entity to reach to the desired and attractive work place where employees are happy, therefore, productive. In fact, whatever small or big the factors are for making best, innovative, productive workplace, we need to take into account every aspect in order to reach to the "heavenly" place.

In this essay I try to focus on what it seems to be the significant factors that if implied and considered it would generate the desirable work environment in short term of time. As a result, there are five aspects that it should be influential and if it applied it, it might create a long-term, happy, and quality workers:

 1.  Using Technology:

   

    Communication tools are being easy to reach, especially with the spread of using smart phones, on these devices receiving and replying to emails and calls is easy, also setting meetings and appointments are now much easier and simpler. Therefore, employees present at the office is getting lesser important day by day, which means that employers can use technology to improve their staff productivity, by allowing them to use their smart phones instead of waiting for them to arrive to the workplace and use the office computer to do their job. Moreover, and besides the saving that can happen in office operation cost, focusing on work quality is what really matters in businesses not where it was been done.

 2. Changing Attendance Policy:

    Entities that impose strict employees' attendance system, and track working hours minute by minute, and have limited absence for excuse policy, are usually the less innovative workplaces. However, I am not saying that rigid attendance policy is not an obstacle that prevents companies from succeeding in their field, what I am really aiming is that this sort of systems is creating a "great wall" inside employees minds by not considering the human nature of flick mood. By asking employees to accomplish a task whatever they were, either inside the company's facilities or outside of it, would shift their minds to the real cause, finishing the work before the deadline, therefore, they can go to what they think is the right place to gain their "perfect mood" to end the task beautifully. As a result, the employee would not be frustrated if he/she got late for work for couple of minutes because of traffic jam, for example or because other life events. In fact, employers would waste time and effort in counting time workers missed, and that is not the real goal of doing business. Producing value is what companies need, therefore, our objects should be focusing on adds value whatever methods we use to accomplish it.

  3. Competitive Work Culture:

     Celebrate team or individual work or life achievements, and creating an "internal game board", where players are the employees and the teams are the departments seems to be a new way to keep competitive and exited workplace. Taking into account the criteria and rating policy used in selecting achievers, otherwise, these activities could produce undesired results, losing trust between employers/managers and their peers/workers for example. Therefore, clearly employers need to understand workers' personalities by using personal evaluation applications and by interacting with them in order to design fair and suitable activities methods and conditions.

  4. Improve employees’ welfare:

  People usually search for appreciation and can be easily settled and develop a business place whenever they found it. Therefore, workers' health and happiness start from appreciating their needs for suitable workplace and treatment.  Improving the visual and the smell of work environment can always show the care companies provide to their staff, and that can be done, for example, by installing indoor plants, hanging encouraging quotes and photos on workplace walls, keeping surfaces clean and tidy, and spraying natural scent. However, ignoring what seems to be small details in working conditions and relying only on what appeared to be a satisfactions in workers faces is what makes employees "flee" in near chance to other workplaces, and it surly makes business die or decreasing annual income as not employee love the place to suggest better business ideas to improve company’s status.

  Nevertheless, searching for better medical insurance and financial support for workers, is an essence factor that would improve their welfare, therefore, their staying for long desire, and in maintaining work quality. Considering employee's future and his/her family health is a sign of care, corporates should always mind that.

      5. Ideas Centre:

       

        One of the interesting tricks to attach employees to their workplace is to give them the chance to change their workplace and the company's decision, and that can be done by welcoming their ideas and suggestions. In fact, applying employee’s inputs can create kind of bond and special relationship between who is suggesting and its workplace and a feeling of appreciation. However, it is advisable to category and class workers' ideas depending on its financial impact on the company, therefore, we can drive employee’s intention to consider their employer's financial position and to try increase their annual return, as they are the beneficiaries if their ideas positively affect company's income.