“The customer is always right” and “Put clients first”- These are common practices ingrained into our workplace culture and taught to us at a young age. Richard Branson is flipping the script. The self-made entrepreneur who founded the Virgin Group has become famous for his unorthodox practices. He says, “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”
Finding Work / Life Balance Through Company Culture
Consider this: Americans spend close to 33 percent of their day working. Shouldn’t they be enjoying that time? And, more importantly, shouldn’t it be your job as their employer to make sure they are? As business leaders, we’ve been taught to put customers first, but maybe it’s time to reappraise that philosophy. If employees are unhappy in their work environment, how can they possibly charm the socks off patrons? Why would they go the extra mile? There’s even a direct correlation between the level of your employees’ productivity and their level of happiness: The happier they are, the more creative (and productive) they become.
Office morale is the key to improving productivity and office communications. This is why every Friday here at Get’n Social we do team lunches. No sad sandwiches at our desk. Some deliberation goes on as to where we want to venture out to for our afternoon meal. Our company is experienced an abundance of growth, we have added four new team members in the last 6 months. We get to know each other outside of our professional roles and build new relationships.
We have a few rules to keep our Friday lunches enjoyable for everyone:
Encourage Non Work Conversations
While it may be tempting to chat about the report that is overdue, or the client deadline coming up, a happy hour is a time for relaxing and socializing.
For one thing, sharing social experiences with your coworkers can make it a lot easier to communicate about actual work Try to find something to talk about unrelated to your job. You may find that you have more in common than you thought. Plus, do YOU really want to talk about work? Neither does anyone else.
Spend a little time talking to everyone. Ask them questions about themselves and really LISTEN (and try to retain the information). Circulate around the room. If it’s a sit-down thing, speak to people all around the table. Not only is it good for you to make connections with a diverse group of people, but it also makes you look like a fun, awesome, friendly person. And by the way, if you look like a fun, awesome, friendly person? Chances are you pretty much just became one.
If you liked this Symboliq Media blog, check out these other related articles:
–Project management software options to jumpstart your company
–Symboliq announced as a 2021 local excellence award winner by UpCity!
