8 Tips To Creating a Unique Work Enviornment

By Kevin Gardner

1. Offer remote work days or hours

Working from home means people don’t have to get dressed up in the morning to go to work, not to mention the time they save commuting. This is not only better for your employees, it’s better for the planet. Employees that work from home full time may rob your company of the effects of collaboration, but you can potentially strike a balance between offering remote work days and office days and have the best of both worlds.

2. Create quiet places

Many workers find it difficult to concentrate in the hustle and bustle of most workplaces. Offering employees quiet spaces where they can get away and work in solitude will earn you the gratitude of many employees.

3. Create open collaborative areas

Conversely, collaboration is often better for businesses. Pixar and Google are two companies that have had stellar success building more collaborative environments. In Pixar’s case. Steve Jobs famously redesigned the offices to mix up different departments which were formerly housed in separate buildings, while Google designs its buildings specifically to encourage maximum mixing between employees.

4. Create recreational spaces

Sometimes teams need a place to get together and blow off steam or take a break from the grind. Whether it’s a simple ping-pong or pool table or a full game room complete with a popcorn maker and projection screen for viewing movies, creating space for employees to enjoy a break together will help enhance their work as a team.

5. Develop leaders

Leadership development is incredibly important for not just your own business, but the business world as a whole. Businesses that establish a reputation for developing great leaders will also find themselves in high demand among potential employees.

6. Offer flexible schedules

Some people wake up at the crack of dawn ready to rock and roll and would love a job where they could hit the office at 5:00 am and leave at 2:00. Others would be delighted to not have to arrive at work until 10:00 am and would be more than happy to work until 7:00 pm to avoid traffic. While you may find it necessary to have workers together during certain key times of the day, this doesn’t mean that everyone necessarily has to show up and leave at the same time.

7. Provide food

Google is, of course, infamous for their snacks, but Google employees can also eat breakfast, lunch and dinner for free at any of their offices. Their Mountain View headquarters alone offers 30 cafes and at one time the company was serving up to 40,000 gourmet meals a day. While you may not have the budget to feed your employees three meals a day, food is a huge perk to employees that have to spend 9 hours or more away from the comfort of their own homes and kitchens.

8. Provide on-site services

Whether it’s a mobile salon, chair massages, dry cleaning pick-up and delivery service, day care or even a mobile dog groomer to a pet-friendly office, bringing services your employees need to them will go a long way towards creating happy employees.

In today’s competitive business world, companies have to do more than just offer great pay and benefits if they want to attract top talent. The best workers are more aware than ever before of what they have to offer and they demand more from companies as a result. Creating a great work environment will give you a significant edge over your competition when it comes to luring in the best talent.