As a manager, you have a wide breadth of responsibilities to maintain on a given basis. While many of these duties pertain to your specific tasks, you’re in charge of ensuring a broader set of goals are achieved as well. Chief among these is ensuring that you’re building a positive work environment for your employees to come to every day!

In today’s market, certain elements of company culture like transparency, core values, and flexibility matter more than ever. In changing times, these factors can have a direct correlation on overall morale and productivity. While the work and pay itself may be attractive on their own, having an employee-friendly work environment will not only set you apart from other companies, but can help you hold onto your best talent.

Not sure whether or not you’re building a positive work environment for your employees? Be sure to check off these boxes:

Maintain open communication

For employees, knowing they can approach their supervisor in a friendly, yet professional, manner can make a significant difference in their overall satisfaction at work. Be clear about your expectations, but also make the effort to show you are happy to provide guidance if your employees need it. Being approachable to your employees decreases anxiety should something go wrong, and maintaining this type of attitude helps with building a positive work environment.

Live your values

For many employees, particularly millennials, working for a company whose values speak to their own is important. As a result, positively reinforcing these values can help employee retention. By encouraging common values such as teamwork, commitment, and initiative, you can help with maintaining a positive work environment for your employees.

Offer workplace flexibility

In order to foster a positive work environment, you may want to consider opportunities for your employees to work beyond the confines of the office. As an employer, it’s important to understand that emergencies which may require your employees to stay at home can come up. Insisting your employees come in when they shouldn’t can lead to a stressful office environment not just for the employee in question, but for everyone.  By making it clear that employees can telecommute if needed, you aid in building a stress-free relationship between yourself and your employees, which will help foster an employee friendly work environment!

Encourage team building activities

Once you’ve succeeded in creating a comfortable work environment for your employees, you’ll want to maintain it by encouraging get-togethers outside of the office space. Activities such as happy hours or volunteer days help your employees build better and stronger relationships among themselves and with you, which ultimately lead to an inviting and collaborative office environment.

Don’t be averse to feedback

If you’re looking to see whether or not you’ve been successful with building a positive work environment, your best bet is to go directly to the source. Occasionally ask your team how they are feeling about work in order to gauge their thoughts on whether or not you’ve met their expectations. Providing surveys can not only help identify areas in need of improvement, they also make your employees feel that they and their opinions are valued, which can ultimately lead to overall satisfaction in the workplace!