What Is a Great Workplace?

What is a Great Workplace?

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Executive Summary

The role of human resources department is to provide the working environment that enables everyone to work collaboratively and efficiently. This report aims to provide an analysis of what a great workplace is. In this paper, I will identify the common attributes of a great workplace from employees and managers’ point of view. I will describe why these attributes make a workplace more enjoyable for employees and managers. Nowadays, finding an employer that meet worker basic needs and have a great working environment is a rarity. I will highlight the human resource issues that usually occur when defining a great workplace. Then, I will apply the human resource theory and concepts that are relevant to the issues and provide recommendations to resolve the issues.

Defining a great workplace

A great workplace means different things in employees’ view and manager’s view. A great workplace can increase productivity and effectiveness of the workers. However, to define a great workplace and to provide the work environment that satisfies everyone is very hard as people value different things.  For employees, the principle of a great workplace is based on trust. They want to be treated fairly and with respect at work. According to Robert Levering, Co-founder of Great Place to Work, “a great place to work is one in which you trust the people you work for, have pride in what you do, and enjoy the people you work with”. For a manager, a great workplace is one that supports a company’s strategic business objectives, allows employees to perform their work efficiently and productively, reflects and embodies the values and culture of the company, and is environmentally healthy. The definition of a great workplace is subjective, depending on the business, its goals and its culture.

The attributes of a great workplace for employees

Through our study and research, the common attributes of a great workplace for employees include fun, teamwork, enthusiasm, open communication and trust. The workplace should be enjoyable because employees spend half of their time at work. Even if not every part of the job is enjoyable, employees can be lightened up at a fun workplace. In order to maximise productivity, teamwork is very important. When the team is successful, they celebrate together, making a workplace more enjoyable because they will have pride in what they do. Employers of a great workplace also give employees meaningful tasks. People will enjoy working if they feel that they are valued and their work gets recognition. Furthermore, open communication is a foundation of trust. Employees who find a workplace a happy place for them to work usually say that open communication is vital at all levels of a great workplace. They value clear, concise and consistent communication as it is an effective communication to help them learn quickly, resolve difficulties, respect each other and introduce new ideas. Employees also feel that it is essential to have trust in a workplace. Trust causes and affects a company culture. Trust means everyone works as a team and help one another to reach the goals of their company without second-guessing what others are doing because everyone knows their roles. Therefore ,trust is critical to ensuring success in a company and it is surely one of the attributes that makes company a great place to work for employees.

The attributes of a great workplace for managers

Managers view a great workplace definition differently from employees. For managers, they focus on achieving company’s objectives. A great workplace must enable them to reach the organisational goals. They want to work with employees who give their best performance and make their work easier. The kind of employees that are self-motivated and don’t need to be pushed by a manager constantly to perform their jobs. The managers also like the teamwork. They prefer to be in a workplace where everyone works together as a team or family. The role of manager is to lead and inspire the employees while maintaining the vision and values of the organisation. After conducting multiple research studies, it yielded one powerful discovery. We found that the talented employees need great managers and the great managers need talented employees as well. This relationship depends on each other. To make a great workplace for managers, the employees have to be supportive and are aware of their roles and responsibilities.

Human resource issue

Team building

A great workplace needs people to work as a team to make the work environment that makes everyone happy. The issue that HR often faces is most of the people do not understand how to create a teamwork or how to develop an effective team. A workplace is where people come from different backgrounds and are diverse in cultures and languages. To create a great workplace, HR needs to manage people who have different backgrounds to have a common understanding of an organisational goal.

Creating a healthy company culture

It’s very hard to provide a workplace that both employees and managers would enjoy working in. Today, the talented employees focus more on company culture than on salaries and benefits because they consider culture as a prime influence when changing jobs. Company culture takes an increasingly important role in business nowadays. Google is the powerful example of favourable company culture that everyone would love to work in. They have a unique and value-driven culture where employees can enjoy benefits such as free meals, on-site gyms, recreational spaces, employee trips and parties. However, these benefits cost greatly and this is the issue that HR is concerned.

Human resource concepts application

Human capital management (HCM)

Human resources are the vital part of the company. For team building, HR needs to deal with individuals to create a sense of teamwork. If you put the right people in the right team, they will work together more effectively and efficiently. To analyse the workforce capabilities, experience, knowledge and attitudes will help HR to build a good team and create a great work environment. Human capital management skill is needed to help identify the areas where employees need to improve their capabilities. HR can identify how many training programs are needed to yield the desired results. HCM includes the process of training employees to have the skills and knowledge that are essential to work as a team and to build a happy work environment.