by Maddy Hicks
Here at Olivia Management, it’s really important to us to maintain a friendly and productive workspace. We’re always brainstorming ways to keep things interesting, which makes it easy and exciting to come into the office each day. Here are some ways to create a fun and efficient work environment.
Slack has some great resources on fostering an effective workspace, and the app itself is something that our company uses every day. According to an article they wrote on this topic, some of the benefits of a fun workplace include better communication, stronger teamwork, enhanced creativity, and more productive employees. They suggest using some of the following strategies:
Maintain a positive environment. We’re constantly uplifting and encouraging each other at OM. We also like to play uplifting or soothing music at the office to keep ourselves in a positive headspace. Right now that’s mainly Harry’s House, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Incorporate quick/fun breaks. When funny stories come up, we often pause to listen and laugh together. Sometimes our artists or office neighbors stop by for a visit, and we enjoy taking a small break to engage with them. This helps build our sense of community and give us a palate cleanser before getting back to work.
Share meals with team members. Once a week, we like to walk next door to The Wash, a new East Nashville food hub. Coming together to share a meal helps break up the day and keep us connected with each other.
Create challenges. One of our new ideas this year was to buy a champagne bottle for each of our big goals. When we accomplish one, we get to pop it! By setting challenges with mini celebrations tied to them, we feel more motivated to push toward those goals.
Samewave has an article about productivity in the workplace. They give the following advice:
Give employees autonomy and encourage work life balance. We’re busy bees here at OM, and it can be easy to get caught up in work. OM founder and owner Erin is always encouraging us to monitor our work life balance. This can include turning Slack notifications off when we leave work, pausing to get something to eat at lunchtime, and communicating about schedule updates.
Set deep work time with no distractions. While it’s fun to chat throughout the day, it’s also a very effective strategy to designate an hour or two to deep work with a quiet room and notifications turned off. This helps to guarantee that the important things for the day get done, and can often help us get ahead on some upcoming tasks.
Create clear goals and expectations. We have regular meetings to ensure that we’re all on the same page about what needs our attention. By clarifying what needs to get done and who is responsible for it, we all stay in tune with our day to day progress.
Delegate. No one can take on everything by themselves. Not only do we have a top notch team of hardworking employees, we also have some amazing interns who help us with everything. When we delegate across our whole team, we get so much more work done.
Lastly, we have some tips from Erin herself! Here are some of her recommendations for creating a great work environment:
Affirm each other at the start of each week. At our Monday staff meetings, we always go around and validate our team members. This can be about something personal or professional. If we see someone doing something exciting in their personal life, we love lifting them up for that. We also think back to the week before, thanking team members for how they helped us with a task or project.
Put up wall calendars. We put up these huge month-by-month calendars on our wall and update them regularly with color-coded artist and company events. It’s easy to glance up and see our whole schedule laid out, and it’s exciting to see how many plans we have coming up.
Use helpful tools like Asana, Zapier, and Superhuman. Keep your eyes out for any new apps and systems that can help keep your workplace organized and efficient. An app like Asana can keep you on track by giving you a space to plan everything you need to do. Zapier can save you time by automatically doing repetitive tasks for you. And Superhuman can help you get through your emails twice as fast as normal, saving you some inbox stress.
Ultimately, it’s all about finding what works best for you and your workplace! We hope these tips inspire your vision for your ideal work environment.