Common Factors Affecting Employee Quality of Life

We often devote a lot of resources in an attempt to increase workplace efficiency—whether it be adopting new tools or improving training methods. However, if you really want to maximize the overall success and productivity of your team, it begins with ensuring their happiness. After all, satisfaction within an individual’s working life is what ultimately determines their level of motivation and desire to grow in a company. As such, investing in the wellbeing of your employees can go a long way in retaining a strong team that’ll always get the job done right. These are a few common factors affecting employee quality of life and the impact you can have on them.

Workload

First and foremost, you should think about your team’s workload. While the main purpose of the office is to get as much work done as possible in an eight-hour day, too much is a sure recipe for stress. As good at their roles as they might be, excessive stress and anxiety surrounding an employee’s work can start to take a toll on their mental health. Long term, stress has been known to wreak havoc on a person’s motivation—which greatly reduces their productivity and satisfaction with their job. So, maintaining realistic and manageable work requirements is the key to keeping your team in a good headspace.

Family Life

An individual’s life outside of work can also have an effect on their wellbeing in the office. This is because this time is meant to help us relax and unwind after a stressful work day. If events happening at home don’t allow for that, it can actually leave a person more stressed than they were at work. For this reason, it’s becoming much more popular for businesses to offer flexible scheduling for those who have other commitments. Though you have little influence on their life outside of work, giving them the ability to accommodate is the best way to reduce anxiety and ensure all their personal needs are being met.

Personal Health

Another common factor affecting employee quality of life is the physical health of certain team members. Just like mental health can cause motivation to deteriorate, so can poor health habits. Eating a balanced diet and exercising regularly is what provides the body with most of its energy supply. As such, when individuals aren’t taking care of themselves, it’s much harder for them to keep up their momentum throughout the day. Fortunately, there are several things you can do to help them adopt better practices, including offering healthier snacks in the breakroom or providing them with standing desks.

Professional Relationships

The relationships between the different members of your team play a vital role as well. Your team spends a lot of time together over the course of certain projects, and having a positive experience is essential to improving overall wellbeing. So, while you can’t always guarantee that everyone will get along, you can expedite the process by holding team-building activities. The higher number of chances you give your team members to get to know one another, the easier and more comfortable it will be to have them work together. Make sure that you also take the time to form strong professional relationships with your team.

Workplace Culture

Additionally, you want to foster a workplace culture that values the wellbeing of its employees. The more effort that gets put into maintaining a positive and accommodating workplace, the happier your team will be. Therefore, it’s always in the best interest of your team to plan special events or lunches to help bring everyone together. With better communication and more opportunities for bonding, you’re bound to create a place where everyone likes to be.

Some other effective ways to create a positive workplace culture include:

• Celebrating accomplishments (individually and as a team)
• Adopt an open-door policy
• Keep expectations consistent
• Encourage occasional fun and games
• Be transparent with procedures

Growth Opportunities

Make sure you consider the number of growth opportunities that’re available for your team, too. After all, many individuals want to continue learning more about their industry and growing within their field of choice. So, by providing them with clear paths to take, they’ll feel more fulfilled as they work towards their goals. Take some time to assess the career needs of each individual and determine whether you can provide something to help them get there. This could be in the form of training or inventing an entirely new position that’s more suited to the professional direction they want to take. Either way, the more a person can learn by working with you, the more likely they are to stay.

Working Environment

But, above all, your team’s immediate working environment, or workplace conditions, are what have the most impact on their overall quality of life. This is due to the fact that physical comfort can go a long way in keeping an individual’s mind focused. The more comfortable they are at their desks, the easier it’ll be for them to maintain a productive work flow throughout the day. As such, it’s important that you’re always on the lookout for ways to improve this space. Whether it be by providing your team with new chairs or installing better lighting in the office, even the smallest of changes can have a drastic effect on everyone’s mood.

A few additional considerations for designing a better work environment are:

• Add some color to the walls
• Adopt an open floor plan
• Control ambient noise levels
• Decorate with some greenery
• Take control of trash and clutter

At Rework, we’ve dedicated ourselves to creating office spaces that not only serve your team’s functional needs, but their personal ones as well. Our selection of refurbished office chairs in Chicago have been redesigned with both comfort and style in mind. This helps your employees curb the standard aches and pains that limit their focus while maintaining a consistent office aesthetic for visitors. We also provide office designing services that will assist you in crafting the perfect layout for accommodating the needs of specific departments. For more information on how we can provide you with the office you and your team need, contact us here.