3 Ways to Make Your Employee Feel Comfortable to Work

By Kaitlin Hurtado on December 2, 2019

Everyone wants to work in a healthy environment, and part of making a work environment a healthy one is putting effort into making employees comfortable. Whether you are thinking about an employee that has been at your company for months or is coming in for their first day, making employees feel comfortable should be high on your list of priorities. If employees are coming into work uncomfortable and dreading fulfilling their duties of the day, they most likely are not going to be putting their all into their work. Making employees feel comfortable at work is not only good for their wellbeing but for the good of the workplace and yourself as the employer or manager.

If you are lost on how you can go about making employees feel comfortable on the job, here are a few things you can do to help make your employees feel comfortable at work.

Photo: Pexels

Send out an anonymous survey/evaluations

You might not always know when your employees are uncomfortable because if you are in a position of power, they most likely are not going to run to you every time they have a complaint. Consider getting a system in place where your employees could submit their feedback anonymously. If they are given the ability to submit their responses anonymously, they will feel more comfortable giving their honest opinion without it being tied to their identity and with the possibility of repercussions minimized.

Employees definitely do not want to give you anything remotely negative if you are going to be giving them any sort of negative reaction, whether that be personal digs or some professional issues. There can be different methods of carrying a feedback survey out. You can do the old-fashioned method of submitting a piece of paper in a locked box for a period of time, then reviewing them on your time to see what you can do to solve any detected issues.

Or, you can set up an online feedback survey and send it to them. Make sure that it really does give an anonymous option if that is what you are advertising to your employees.

Get to know your employees

If you don’t know your employees past their name and job position, it’s likely they know you to the same extent. Meaning, you probably are no one other than someone who controls their employment or day-to-day tasks to them. Put some effort into getting to know your employees. This doesn’t mean going to extreme lengths to be “best friends” with every single employee, but putting effort into getting to know your employees past what they are supposed to do on a daily basis.

This can start by spending a few extra minutes greeting them every day, showing interest in how they are doing, what upcoming plans they have. Keep these small details in mind. A little kindness can go a long way. If they feel comfortable enough to talk to you on a personal level, working in a professional setting will feel much more comfortable. They will be more inclined to reach out with a quick question when they need assistance or speak up more in a meeting to offer their input.

Give “perks” and build a sense of community 

Depending on what type of workplace you are at, this method of making employees feel more comfortable can be pretty easy or relatively difficult. These “perks” don’t need to be extravagant or overly costly, but just something to make your employees a little more excited to come into work. This can be something as simple as getting doughnuts for the team on a designated day of the week or celebrating “birthdays of the month” with a potluck.

If you have a limited budget and/or resources, supplying your employees with incentives can a lot harder, but not impossible…time to get creative! Potlucks do relieve some of the financial pressure on you or the company budget, but you also want to set aside time to properly plan and let your employees know about the potluck in advance. A potluck is only as successful as the number of people contributing, after all.

If you’re already putting efforts into getting to know your employees more personally, why not encourage them to do the same to each other? Sometimes coworkers will already gravitate toward each other and form their own personal connections, but other times, you may have to step in and encourage your employees to get to know each other. Don’t outright go up to your employees and say “Let’s make friends” but create an environment where everyone will feel comfortable getting to know each other in.

For example, having coworkers go out together during lunch instead of sitting alone in their cubicles during their meals can be an easy way to encourage coworkers to feel more comfortable with one another. When coworkers feel more comfortable with each other, they will also be more willing to collaborate or ask each other questions, which can only make the workplace more efficient.

Making employees feel comfortable in the workplace is a complete win-win, so why not get started on your efforts today?

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