How to improve workplace friendliness in your company

We don't always realize it, but the work atmosphere is essential for an employee's well-being. Working in good conditions, in a friendly and pleasant atmosphere helps manage stress and therefore improves performance. Here are some ideas that will help you create a pleasant and lasting work environment within your company, thus promoting good relationships between your employees.

1- Facilitate the arrival of a new employee
Generally, employees don't all go home for lunch and often eat together near their workplace based on affinities.
A new employee hasn't yet had time to discover the area where they will be working and doesn't know the best places. To facilitate their integration and allow them to get closer to their colleagues more quickly, it may be wise to create a small booklet listing the best addresses in the area. During a meeting, everyone can suggest their favorite places, which will also be an opportunity to exchange ideas and discover their colleagues' tastes. Besides being useful, this approach will encourage exchanges between employees and build trust with the newcomer.

2- Promote proximity
How many emails do we all send to our colleagues and collaborators every day without ever speaking to them in person, even when we see them in the hallways? This form of internal communication is certainly fast and efficient but unfortunately lacks any human contact and therefore friendliness. To remedy this, try the experiment of scheduling a day without internal emails once a month where, during that day, physical movement will be necessary. Of course, this kind of initiative may slightly reduce productivity if you have to cross the entire building to talk to a colleague or go down several floors, but at the same time, it's a way to positively impact team spirit and improve relationships in the company for a better work environment.

3- Implement a friendliness charter.
To encourage mutual understanding and exchanges, create a friendliness charter where everyone can add their suggestions. Encourage employees to greet everyone upon arrival, organize relaxation areas for breaks, keep smiling, address everyone in the same way, offer help to newcomers, etc. These are all ideas that can be included in a friendliness charter to promote a good work environment and build friendly relationships between colleagues.

4- Exchange positions
A classic idea, of course, but one that is so effective in building relationships is exchange. Exchanging positions, colleagues, sites, or professions for a whole day is the best way to improve the quality of relationships within the company.
Putting the CEO in the shoes of an employee, handling human resources if you're in marketing, exchanging a salesperson for the financial manager allows you to break down barriers between departments and discover the environment of your colleagues. This helps to create, among other things, social dialogue, making working relationships more human.

5- Desacralize hierarchical relationships
Hierarchical levels, whatever they may be, often hinder relationships, especially in large companies where hierarchical ties are strong.
To create a link between these "two worlds" and encourage internal communication, it is recommended to go beyond the image of the boss and their "underlings" by, for example, organizing breakfasts where employees from different departments can get to know their boss and managers better and exchange their points of view. This way, they could understand each other better and know each other's difficulties and expectations for better collaboration.

6- Last but not least, the themed cocktail
Taking stock of friendliness in the company leads to thinking about new ways to maintain and improve it.
Organizing a cocktail party once or several times a year, bringing the entire company together around a specific theme (company culture, work environment, relationships with management, etc.) is the perfect opportunity to discuss these topics over drinks. It also allows you to talk to those you don't know and is a good way to bring everyone together around a light subject and in a festive atmosphere while contributing to the development of friendliness within the company.

Philippe Montant CEO ExeKutive.biz