It is becoming increasingly common for companies to recognize the value of a healthy work community. These companies promote work-life balance initiatives, give employees sustainable career paths, and take steps to show they genuinely care and support the people within their organization. There is genuine support, autonomy, and respect within these workplaces and, as a result, businesses perform better, and there is more collaborative capacity among colleagues.

However, what sets a healthy work community apart from its competition? Let’s take a look at the five factors found in every thriving workplace:

 

#1: Work-Life Balance Initiatives

The truth about work-life balance is that it looks different for everyone, so it doesn’t have one definition. The personal lives of professionals can entail traditional or non-traditional family systems and define themselves by the unique values and goals that are most important to your workers. To figure out what work-life balance initiatives will be empowering to your organization, ask your employees! Take time to sit down with them to figure out how you can best support them and lower the level of conflict between their work and personal roles. This time can include discussions around increased autonomy, lower workloads, childcare, opportunities to work remotely, as well as physical and social health initiatives.

Work-Life balance initiatives support employees to work smart, not harder or longer or faster. They not only protect the employee from the burnout and the company from high turnover, but it empowers the organizational member to contribute their best work to the company.

#2: Excellent Employee Engagement

It’s becoming increasingly common for companies to consider employee engagement when they determine how much to pay their leaders. That’s how vital employee engagement is to successful and healthy organizations. Research shows a direct link between employee engagement and quality, turnover, and customer service. Engagement can come in many forms, and often it means supporting employees in their personal, professional, and social roles. It says that leaders show genuine care and concern about the well-being of their employees. Engagement can come to fruition through employee assistance programs, flexible work arrangements, fitness initiatives, and of course through meaningful conversations and attention to your employees.

 

#3: Sustainable Career Paths

Sustainable career paths allow individuals to have career success over time that is linked to their well-being. Careers that can be considered sustainable include ones that align with an individual’s needs and values, offer flexibility, give ongoing learning, and cyclic renewal. On a viable career path, individuals will feel supported in their work lives, and they will also have time to fulfill their family and personal activities. Sustainable careers prevent burnout, provide resources, allow well-being to be supported, and actualize professional success.

 

#4: Caring and Supportive Work Community

Creating caring organizational communities within the workplace is a crucial element to forming a sustainable workforce. In a supportive work community, employees are motivated to care for and help one another. Personal time is respected. Individuals are empowered to continue learning new things. Workflow naturally elevates. Positive social support within an organization generally means that employees feel cared about by their colleagues, supervisors, and leaders. This support can come in the form of healthy social interactions or resources. Research has shown that caring work environments can even lower symptoms of depression, increase job satisfaction, and create more positivity in the employee’s personal or family life.

 

#5: Leaders who Support their Employees and Practice Self-Care

When leaders genuinely care about their organizational members, it shows! What’s more is that if a leader is not taking the time to care for themselves and practice self-care that also shows. The adage is true: if you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of others. Healthy workplace communities are always home to leaders whom role model self-care and ensure that they don’t burn out so that they can support the others on their team. As a result, a culture of care will be built within the organization, and members will care more about each other’s well-being. Future leaders will begin to emerge, and the healthy community that you helped create will produce smarter work with less stress.

Why choose Institute of Respect?

The services Dennis Morris offers draw on his 30 years of experience helping clients cultivate and strengthen trust – as a psychotherapist, senior leader, executive coach, mediator and educator. What sets him apart from other consultants is his expertise as a therapist and VP of Clinical Programs in behavioral health before becoming an executive coach and consultant.

Clients appreciate the professionalism he brings to the table, derived from the combination of his clinical background and his business consulting experience in corporate, academic and nonprofit arenas. For a complete bio, visit www.instituteofrespect.com.