How well do you know your employees?

Think carefully before you answer that question. 

Whether you have a handful of employees or you have too many to count, it’s important to understand the different personality types you have within your office space. Whilst this can be difficult in large offices, having a general grasp on the subject will allow you to focus on managing your employees in the right way. 

You might think that people go to work, do their job, come home, receive their pay and that’s it. If you have that mindset, you’re far from the mark. Humans have a desire to be part of something bigger than themselves. Humans want to belong, they want to be part of a team, working towards something which really matters. That fits into the workplace image far more than you might think. By tapping into that human need and psychology, you can create a productivity picture which will take you from moderate to serious growth, far quicker than you might realise. 

Many managers don’t understand workplace psychology. It’s no surprise when you consider how much a manager has to do these days. From managing conflicts to sourcing new clients, dealing with day to day problems and ensuring all targets are met at the end of the month, there is little time for anything else. However, by focusing on your employees as humans and thinking in the same way as them, wherever possible, you will not only become a better manager overall, but you’ll be able to get the best out of your individual employees too. 

To create a positive and powerful office environment you need to think beyond the obvious and tap into the depths of the human mind.

It sounds complicated, but you’d be surprised how obvious a lot of it really is! 

This guide is going to open your eyes to the world of workplace psychology, allowing you to put into place different initiatives and methods which will not only allow your employees to feel better in their job role, but also to produce their best work time and time again. 

How Understanding The Mind Gives You The Key to Workplace Productivity 

When you hear the term ‘mental health’, what do you think? Does your mind automatically conjure up images of depression, anxiety, stress and the like? Mental health isn’t only about the negatives, because we all have mental health, just as we all have physical health. 

There are countless things which can affect our mental health, for better or worse. As a manager, you can learn how to improve your employees’ mental health, allowing them to feel good in their office chairs, boosting their overall morale and therefore increasing productivity. When this is done as a whole, e.g. across the entire office, you’ll notice the ripple effect in terms of deadlines being met, fewer mistakes being made, happier customers, more ideas coming your way around the modern boardroom tables, and more profits at the end of each quarter. 

Mental health isn’t always negative, it doesn’t always pertain to conditions such as depression, and understanding this will allow you to tap into productivity as a whole. The mind controls everything we do as humans. From the movements we make to the decisions we take, the mood we’re in and the words we say. Understanding the mind doesn’t mean that you need to take a neurosurgery degree or study grey matter in detail, it simply means you need to understand how your employees think, be au fait with the things which matter in general, and know how to paint a picture of positivity, which becomes contagious across your office. 

How does this boost productivity?

When you break it down to its most simplistic explanation, it seems a total no-brainer question. 

When you feel better, you do a better job. It’s really that simple. If you feel that you’re valued by someone, you want to do more for them, you want to almost reward them for their faith in your and prove that their faith isn’t incorrectly placed. You feel comfortable in your role, you know what is expected of you and that allows you to work creatively and freely, without feeling shackled by uncertainty or fear. 

When you understand this, you’ll also realise that staff who feel positive and upbeat in their role also go the extra mile. The business becomes their own, they want it to succeed because it’s a reflection back on them. Before you know it, you’ll have a family feel in your space which transcends any issue that may come your way. You overcome obstacles together as a team, and nobody feels left behind or blamed. 

Tapping into how the mind works and creating the positive picture we’ve just described will truly give you the keys to workplace productivity. We all know where productivity leads - profits and growth!

The good news is that understanding all of this doesn’t require deep and meaningful discussions and it doesn’t require you to do mental assessments, it simply requires you to open your own mind and put yourself in the position of your employees. 

The Importance of Diversity, Equality, and Inclusiveness

One of the biggest and most important issues in the modern workplace is diversity, equality and inclusiveness. Without these three elements your business will fail. No question. 

The three terms might sound the same and when you describe them and they do overlap, but they’re subtly different at the same time.

• Diversity - Understanding that within any workforce there will be a range of people, some of whom may have specific differences. Diversity is about appreciating and understanding those differences, whilst ensuring that those very differences don’t cause them to be treated differently, or to be left out of discussions around the meeting room seating.

Check out this infographic which highlights some unexpected benefits for the business when focusing on diversity.

Source - https://www.talentlyft.com/en/blog/article/244/top-10-benefits-of-diversity-in-the-workplace-infographic-included

• Equality - This means treating everyone the same regardless of any difference they have, which can also include ability level, gender, pay scale, position, etc. Over the last few years, we have certainly heard a lot about equality of pay between men and women and that falls into this particular bracket. Put simply, two people who are doing the same job, with the same responsibility level should be paid the same and given the same perks as each other, and shouldn’t be given extra favour due to their gender, or anything else. 

• Inclusive - Diversity and inclusiveness do overlap to a large degree, but the main difference with this particular term is that whilst differences aren’t ignored, they’re not pointed out either. In addition, the key point is that everyone is treated the same. Regardless of gender, sexuality, religion, race, disability, or anything else, every single person in the office space receives the same treatment and same responsibilities. 

These three terms affect workplace psychology a huge amount. If you go against any of these three things, you’re going to damage morale quickly and very badly indeed. It’s vital to treat everyone the same. 

It’s important to point out that this doesn’t cover making appropriate adjustments to someone’s office furniture if they need it, e.g. due to a disability. This should be done in order to help them work in a comfortable way and should be done as standard. Making these changes doesn’t mean you’re treating them differently, it simply means you’re helping them do their job. Diversity, equality and inclusiveness cover the opportunities you give to employees, the way they’re spoken to, listened to, and the work they do. 

By embracing differences but ensuring that they do not affect the way you treat someone, you’re creating a family feel in your office space and empowering all employees. Failing to understand this point means that treating one person even slightly differently will affect everyone. Colleagues still stand up for one another, and diversity, equality and inclusiveness are extremely important within a team environment. By ensuring that everyone is treated the same, you will boost morale throughout the entire office space.

The Rising Problem of Stress And Burnout

One of the single biggest problems within a workplace environment in the modern day is stress and burnout. According to MentalHealth.org, during 2018, 74% of adults felt unable to cope or totally overwhelmed due to stress over the previous year. Within that 81% of women surveyed admitted to feeling stress, compared to 67% of men. 

That’s a pretty eye-opening thought, and a huge number of people potentially hiding the fact that they’re feeling overwhelmed with their workload, or totally unclear about what is expected of them.

Stress can be life-threatening when left unchecked, over a long period of time. Whilst a very small amount of stress can be motivating, it can be extremely dangerous when it goes to the extreme, and when it goes on for too long. 

Stress makes it literally impossible to focus and cope, it can affect your appetite and sleep pattern, which works against you in a totally different way, and starts to affect your entire life. Stress is super-dangerous and something which employers are starting to take more seriously as the dangers are highlighted. Of course, stress is also one of the main reasons for long-term sickness, which causes a business a huge amount of cash. Of course, it also affects morale within the office, because if one person is stressed out, it’s quite likely that several others are too and just not admitting to it. 

Remember, we’re talking about workplace psychology here, and it is extremely damaging to mental health to experience stress over the long-term. This can easily lead towards anxiety and depression, which are dark roads you should try and avoid as much as possible.

Having a stress management plan in place within your office is vital. This means that everyone feels supported and part of the team, nobody feels that the sole responsibility of any task sits squarely on their shoulders alone and that there is an open-door policy for staff to discuss problems or fears with their manager. By doing this, you’re breaking down the stigma of stress, and therefore reducing its effects in a powerful way. 

Check out this video for a little information on stress overall, and what stress management entails. 

If you want to improve the morale in your office and ensure your employees’ mental health remains positive, stress is one of the biggest issues you need to address and focus on. A little later in this guide, we will highlight a few things you can incorporate into your office to help boost workplace psychology in the right direction, and most of them will target stress at the same time. 

Personality Types And How to Understand Your Employees

Everyone is different in how they think, feel, how they approach tasks and how they respond to challenges. Understanding this is vital if you want to get the best out of your employees. There are three main personality types: 

• Extrovert
• Introvert
• Ambivert

An extrovert is someone who is quite vocal, someone who is visibly confident and someone who prefers to work with people. An introvert is someone who is much quieter, someone who is a deep thinker and a good listener, and prefers to work in smaller groups or alone. An ambivert sits in the middle of both of these types and can blend into most situations. 

Dealing with each type involves a subtly different approach. Of course, if you have a huge number of employees, you’re not going to be able to identify their personality type and tailor your approach to each and every one, but if you have line managers who work with smaller groups of employees, this is something they could be responsible for doing. If you have a smaller team however taking the time to identify their specific personality types could be a great way for you to handle communication in a more effective way and give challenges which that specific person is going to respond to well. 

Different personality types think differently to one another. For instance, an extrovert will have no problem with standing up in front of a group of people and giving a speech. This is something they will enjoy because they like the limelight and they like to be a visual target within a room. They’re charming and they can carry off this type of task very effectively. If you have a large conference coming up, you will want an extrovert to do the public speaking for you. 

On the other hand, an introvert will be able to handle a brainstorming task very effectively, coming up with a creative solution to a problem which has perhaps been left unresolved for a long period of time. Give them space and quiet to do it, perhaps a booth, and you’ll see results. If you have a particularly challenging issue, which nobody has been able to come up with an answer to, an introvert is the best person to hand that task over to. 

Giving an introvert a public speaking task could go perfectly well, but it would depend upon the introvert and how they felt about it. Equally, an extrovert would also be able to come up with ideas to solve a problem, but perhaps not thinking as creatively or deeply as an introvert would. It’s all about knowing your employees well, including their strengths and weaknesses, and how they think about tasks. 

Aside from personality types, you might also have generational differences to deal with. This means that you will have groups within your office who are from different eras. You might have the odd baby boomer, a few millennials, maybe a Gen X-er. Whilst we can’t generalise, people who belong to each generation tend to approach tasks slightly differently. Understanding these differences could help you tap into extra productivity reserves, especially if you add in the personality type conundrum at the same time!

Of course, understanding all of this may also allow you to side-step conflict with certain employees, or help to resolve issues which are brewing between two or more individual employees within your office. 

Elements Which Cause Negativity in The Workplace

It’s important to understand that every single office may have its own issues which could cause negativity and lack of engagement within the space. Creating a positive environment is a must if you want to ensure morale is high and everyone is pulling in the same direction. 

With that in mind, you need to understand the most common issues which can detrimentally affect workplace psychology and basically cause employees to ‘turn off’ their internal productivity switch. A little later, we’ll turn it on its head and talk about the things you can incorporate which boost positivity within the office and cause the entire feel to be uplifting and ultra-productive as a result!

Poor Office Design 

If your employees are uncomfortable in the office, either because the furniture isn’t supporting their bodies and causing aches and pains, or the general feel of the space is dark and depression, how are you supposed to expect to get the best out of them?

Choosing the best office furniture for your employees’ needs is vital. Nobody can work well if they’re in pain, and nobody should have to work in that way anyway! 

A poorly designed office is one of the biggest causes of low morale, hands down, and also links towards other problems, such as stress and conflicts. This is all because everyone feels dragged down by the feel in the office and they’re sick of having to battle with uncomfortable chairs and desks all day long. 

Staff Being Favoured or Treated Unfairly

A little earlier we discussed equality, diversity and inclusiveness and a lack of those three elements is one of the biggest reasons for morale to be on the low. 

If you’re treating staff unfairly, they’re not going to want to work for you and they certainly won’t try their best. Instead, they’re going to think “what’s the point?” And just do the bare minimum in order to go home at the end of the day and get paid at the end of the month. 

If you want to inspire your employees, you need to treat them equally and fairly at all times. 

Stress, Due to Unfair or Uneven Workload

There are many reasons for stress to become an issue in a person’s life, but having an overwhelming workload, with difficult deadlines and targets is one of the biggest reasons. Working within a team means that everyone is responsible for the workload within an office, and takes the pressure away from individuals. If you have one member of staff who isn’t pulling their weight, this unfairly places extra pressure on other people. It could also be that one particular employee is finding themselves with an unfair portion of the work. 

Ensuring that everyone has a do-able amount of work, with fair and reasonable deadlines, is vital. 

Uncertainty of Job Roles

Do you understand your job and what you should be doing? Do you know where your responsibilities start and end? Do you feel that you have adequate training to be able to do your job effectively, and to give you confidence on a daily basis?

If you don’t, you have an unclear job role and that in itself is a huge issue. Not being sure of what your job role is and where your responsibilities end can cause you to feel stressed, unsure of yourself, and cause you to take on too much work. As a result, you end up in the category above, with an unfair workload. Unclear job roles are one of the biggest reasons for people leaving an organisation, but also one of the biggest reasons for negativity and lack of morale too. 

Take the time to ensure that everyone can answer ‘yes’ to the questions posed above.

Poor Management

Another big reason for people leaving a business, poor management is also a reason act morale will be low and workplace psychology will be seriously negative, impacting upon productivity. 

Employees need to be inspired and motivated by their leader, and if that’s not happening, everyone is floundering, wondering where to turn. 

Whilst nobody is perfect, it’s important to assess your management style and skills and to realise that nobody ever stops learning, no matter how experienced they are. We can always improve!

Check out this video for more information on this very serious subject.

Secrecy And Not Discussing Important Issues With Employees

If a change is on the horizon, you need to discuss this with your employees well ahead of time and ask for their opinions and suggestions. You also need to keep them informed every step of the way. Not doing this can cause anxiety and stress to enter into the equation and none of that is positive or ideal for productivity. 

For instance, perhaps you’re thinking about incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into your office. Your employees might worry that their jobs are on the line, and if you don’t talk them through it and alleviate their worries by answering questions openly and honestly, you’re looking at a serious problem. From your executive desks, make sure you think about how those in your office will feel about anything which affects them directly or indirectly. 

A Lack of Praise or Being Overly Critical 

A simple ‘thank you’ can be enough to raise someone’s spirits by a huge amount. How often do you thank your employees for a job well done, or give them a pat on the back when they meet a huge deadline? A lack of praise erodes away at confidence and causes employees to think that they’re not valued or cared about.

Whilst nobody is suggesting you bring cupcakes into the office every day, saying ‘thank you’ and perhaps treating your staff to a coffee every so often could be a good way to go! 

On the flip-side being overly critical and never saying anything positive about the work your employees do is extremely damaging. We’re all human at the end of the day, and we want praise when we do something well. 

A Lack of Progression Opportunities 

When a job role becomes vacant, it’s important to allow internal candidates to apply, as well as external candidates. If you’re always looking to recruit new staff and never giving your existing employees the chance to move up into a role with greater responsibility, you’re basically telling them that you don't believe they’re good enough. This is probably not the case at all, but that is how the mind works. 

Make sure that you’re fair with promotion opportunities and you ensure that everyone is able to apply if they choose to, internal or external. 

8 Initiatives to Incorporate Into Your Working Environment

We’ve talked a lot so far about workplace psychology and what not to do, so let’s be a little more positive ourselves and talk about what you should be doing instead!

Focusing on your employees means understanding their needs and giving them what they want, within reason. It also means understanding how they might be feeling underneath their words and listening properly to what they’re saying. There is a very big difference between listening and hearing, which is something we’re going to explore a little shortly. 

To help you create a positive and productive atmosphere within your office space, here are 8 initiates and elements you need to incorporate into your contemporary office design and working methods. By doing this, the future of your office will look very bright indeed!

1- Look at the colour scheme and general design of your office 

A dark office is uninspiring and choosing the wrong colour can be distracting. To find the perfect piece of middle ground, do a little research into something called colour psychology. This basically means tapping into the idea that certain colours can influence our mood and therefore influence our productivity levels. 

Check out this infographic for a little more information. 

Source - https://www.dailyinfographic.com/the-psychology-of-colors-infographic

Ensure that employees can move around the office without obstructions getting in the way. For instance, check that your modern office cupboards aren’t blocking easy movement around the space, and think about adding designer office chairs to add extra comfort and style. These small things can make a huge difference. 

2 - Think about biophilic design to reduce stress 

Another office design consideration is the art of bringing nature into your office. This is called biophilic design and basically means that you add in nods to Mother Nature within your space. This could be a living wall, a neutral or green carpet which looks like grass, office plants here and there, water features, and a generally natural vibe to your space.

Biophilic office design has been shown to help reduce stress levels and create a sense of calm within an office, which works with the psychology element of productivity very well indeed. Within this, think about furniture which allows fresh air to circulate and keep everyone calm and comfortable, such as mesh office chairs. 

3 - Have regular team meetings and ask for ideas and opinions

Not feeling listened to basically adds up to not feeling valued. You can change all of that by having regular team meetings at the round office desk and allowing staff to speak out about issues which are bothering them, their opinions on anything work-related, and you can also actively ask for suggestions and ideas on problems or initiatives that you’re thinking of incorporating. 

By doing this, you’re showing your employees that you care about what they think, but this also means that you need to listen to their suggestions and take them on board, wherever possible. 

4 - Learn how to really listen

Do you know the difference between listening and really listening? As a manager, you need to be able to listen to your employees carefully and understand what they’re telling you, but this also means understanding what they’re not saying. Being able to read body language and picking up on non-verbal cues is vital if you want to really understand what lies beneath the words you’re hearing. 

Check out this video for a few pointers. 

5 - Incorporate a stress management initiative

A little earlier we highlighted the damaging effects of stress on mental health and productivity, but having a stress management initiative in your workplace is a great way to battle all of that. An open-door policy is also the way forward, to ensure that staff feel comfortable coming to you and discussing when they might be feeling overwhelmed. By doing that, you can put into place measures to help reduce the pressure and therefore step in before more damage is done. 

This can include stress management training, encouraging staff to help each other out and be open with how they’re feeling, and basically creating a family feel within the space which ensures that nobody feels under undue pressure in the workplace. 

6 - Update your employee health and wellbeing package

What health and wellbeing benefits do you offer your employees? We’re talking about things like reduced cost of a gym membership, holistic therapy discounts, confidential counselling access, smoking cessation advice, healthy eating guidance, etc. Offering advice and extras such as this aren’t unnecessary, they’re totally necessary! They show your employees that you care about them and their health, which helps them feel valued and therefore pushes them to work harder for you.

In addition, by highlighting potential health risks and offering ways to help reduce them, you’re also cutting down on the chances of lost working days due to sickness. 

 

7 - Have regular social outings and team building days

Creating a team feel can also be done via social outings and team building. This doesn’t have to be all the time, but perhaps a once a month lunch out, or maybe a team building day out every few months. These small ideas can add up to huge effects and help to forge a ‘one for all’ feel to your office. In addition, it also helps to boost trust between employees and may help to reduce the chances of conflicts occurring, which are huge problems for morale when they do occur. 

8 - Think about active working methods

Have you heard about active working? This all links to the fact that a sedentary lifestyle is considered extremely dangerous, and working at expensive office desks actually counts towards that very same sedentary lifestyle. This is also referred to as “sitting disease”

Check out this infographic for a little more information.

Source - https://www.active.com/fitness/articles/infographic-sitting-disease-by-the-numbers

There are many ways you can battle this, including encouraging your employees to take their regular breaks, offering them a break are which allows them to get up and move around, perhaps having an outdoor break area, as well as a sitting and standing option during work, with stand height tables. You could also incorporate standing meetings too. 

Conclusion 

Looking after your staff means seeing them as the biggest asset your business has. These are the people who do the work, who bring the profits your way, and by not looking after them, you’re neglecting your duty and your business as a whole. Your employees will quickly become disengaged and when that happens, it’s a long road back.  

Workplace psychology can be affected by a myriad of different elements and it also comes down to the individual person and their way of thinking too. By incorporating the initiatives we have mentioned throughout this guide however, you’re going a long way to ensure your space is positive, uplifting, motivating, and productive.