As a business, you should be giving your employees a safe space to work. From the colleagues they work with, to the overall workplace atmosphere, your employees should be thriving in a positive workplace.
However, there can often be issues that arise in a work environment and how you handle these problems, shows how trustworthy your business can be. With that in mind, here are a few ways that you can help encourage a safe working environment.
Train your employees
Your employees can always benefit from education and knowledge. Within the workplace, it’s all about creating a team that can look after one another in a situation where something has gotten out of hand.
Training your employees to spot problems that need to be addressed is essential. From learning how to treat others of different ranks to the dos and dont’s of workplace friendships. It’s all important stuff that needs to be discussed so that employees have the responsibility afterward to behave appropriately.
Update your policies
Policies are necessary to have in place. It can help ensure that you are doing everything you can to protect employees but also protect your business. You can offer all the training in the world to your employees but if they don’t learn, they need a policy in place that will hold them accountable.
Everyone should have access to these workplace policies, whether it’s an equality policy or how to conduct yourself in relation to company culture.
Make it easy for employees to report incidents
You never fully know what goes on in an office and so when it comes to workplace relationships, it’s important to have trust. As a company, employees should feel like they can speak to their supervisors or HR in a scenario where they need to report an incident.
From simple workplace disagreements to physical bodily harm, you should have protocols in place to help employees. It’s having this system in place that will ensure you then contact the relevant authorities, whether that’s providing a formal warning, approaching GBH and ABH solicitors to calling the police.
Get feedback
Feedback is a great part of gaining trust and improving communication within the workplace. It allows everyone within the organization to have a say on what they feel needs improving and what is perfect, just the way it is.
This feedback could be gathered through company meetings, anonymous surveys, and one-to-one meetings.
Stamp out any workplace bullying
All workplaces should have a zero policy when it comes to workplace bullying. However, with 1 in 4 UK workers having been bullied at work, it’s, unfortunately, a problem that continues to exist.
With that being said, it’s important to be the change. Consider the relationships within the organization and listen for any murmurings or allegations of bullying. By dealing with it in the proper manner, instead of ignoring it, you can stamp it out.
Encouraging a safe environment is important for all staff to continue feeling comfortable when coming to work. The workplace should be an enjoyable, safe space.