6 Resolutions to Amplify Your Workplace Strategy
Regardless of your role within the company, your goals for this next year are likely the same; to further expand your leadership skills and, in turn, help lead your company towards continued success. And despite how successful the organization has been in the past, the future is yours to mold. You’re only limited by your drive and vision. Make the most of this opportunity and solidify your enterprise’s workplace strategy by making your workplace one where people feel empowered and inspired to do their very best.
But, where do you start? What does the workplace of the future look like and how can you create an environment that brings out the best in your diverse workforce?
Source: iofficecorp.com
Stegmeier Consulting Group’s Insights…
Six recommendations were laid out in this piece to help organizations “amplify their workplace strategy.” Among these recommendations were re-committing to technology and ensuring your teams have access to continuing education. While both important, the other four points especially stood out to our team at SCG. These points, highlighted below, are in fact tremendous recommendations. We’d like to convey, however, that the implementation of these recommendations can come with challenges many companies may not have considered.
As mentioned above, innovative tools and technology certainly help a new strategy. But what if your workplace, and in turn, your workforce, could become more innovative as well? In many of our client engagements, we are witnessing workplaces being utilized as more than just physical space where people work. More and more, workplaces are designed to actually increase the effectiveness of an individual or a team.
The struggle organizations often face, however, is that even the best laid design plans can’t always account for the human factor being plugged into the equation. For instance, workplaces allowing more spaces for collaboration should no doubt lead to…you guessed it…increased collaboration (recommendation number three in this article.) If employees are uncomfortable utilizing these new spaces, and instead opt to remain isolated in their individual workstations, the design risks being labeled a failure, as collaboration zones are under-utilized and employees fail to connect with peers in new ways.
Similarly, workplace strategies that don’t require employees to be constantly on-site give employees a better feeling of flexibility and work-life balance (recommendations two and six). This is attractive to talented individuals all across today’s multi-generational workforce. Again, however, careful attention must be paid to the potential hurdles of such initiatives. Leaders of flexible or remote workers may have concerns, for instance, that they can’t monitor their employees’ productivity, usually due to reliance on a line-of-sight managerial style. Training managers for leading in new ways and measuring by results is a great way to combat this common issue.
And finally, recommendation number 5 encourages us to “make decisions based on numbers, not feelings.” We couldn’t agree more. What better way to begin a new workplace initiative than by assessing your workforce’s readiness level for change? Conducting a workplace utilization study to see which spaces are most and least desired by employees, or outright under-utilized, is another option. A sure fire way to prepare for challenges that come with a change initiative is to discover potential workforce and workplace issues early on.
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with all of the above hurdles and services. If it’s time to get your innovative workplace strategy back on track, consider reaching out to us. We can introduce your team to best practices discovered throughout our nearly 20 years of research and client experience, and help you self-identify a workplace strategy that will be most effective for your organization. We can also help ensure your team obtains leader buy-in, stays informed of latest workplace trends, and communicates the who, what, when, where, and most importantly, why, of workplace change to your staff.
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Changing the way organizations manage workplace change
