There’s no better time for the joyful workplace revolution, also known as the workplace fairytale.

What makes a good workplace environment? How do you create a positive experience? 

These are pressing questions that need to be answered if you want to take that step toward a more positive (and productive!) workplace. If it’s handled correctly, we can transform our organizations into workplaces where people are doing even greater work together.

Why NOW Is the Time to Create a Positive Work Environment

Employee scarcity is the perfect storm of opportunity. Scarcity changes things. When we’re facing scarcity, our behavior changes. We all remember the toilet paper memes at the beginning of the pandemic. 

I don’t bring this up lightly, but the pandemic—for those of us who have never been through anything like that—has left us permanently changed. There is a sense of the suddenness of it all and the great losses through it. So many of us have more clarity about what is important and what our priorities are.

The world of work is shifting. Where people work, how people work, and even why people work has changed. The expectations of customers and clients have changed. What employees want has changed. 

Now, it’s time to change our workplaces. 

There’s really no need to wait any longer. We can leverage the digital transformation that has occurred, and we can leverage our growth as people. 

That, combined with the multitude of choices employees have, make this time ripe for a joyful workplace revolution.

By the way, I am not using the word “revolution” lightly. I know “revolution” has a disruptive connotation. But it can also be the bedrock of tearing down or removing what doesn’t work for us and creating and building something that will work to our great benefit.

Creating a Positive Work Environment: 8 Elements that Need to Shift 

A revolution implies that something needs to change. So what are we going to dismantle or change to create our paradigm shift? Here are 8 current workplace traits that we will be building into something better. 

1. Going from working for to working with – tearing down or changing our power hierarchies.
2. Going from an elitist model of leadership to a model where we are all leaders.
3. Going from a model of micro-management to shared responsibility.
4. Going from a model where we split our professional and personal selves to a model where we bring our whole selves to work.
5. Going from a model where being professional colleagues may unintentionally create distance, to a model where we are a community with a commitment to each other and to the transformative work we’re doing together.
6. Going from an environment where we may have a reticence to have conversations with people (our own discomfort and anticipating negative response) to an environment where we can talk to anyone, anytime, about anything.
7. Going from a place where enthusiasm can be short lived or be perceived as over the top, to environments where we recognize the power of energy and work together to fuel it.
8. Going from environments where it can be more rare to have high trust and high collaboration, to environments where we are working together to demystify what it takes to create a culture of high trust, high collaboration and to have it cascade throughout the organization. 

Does this sound like utopia or a fairytale? Unfortunately it is. Too many people are going to go to work today pretending that they are okay, pretending that they feel heard, pretending that they feel valued, pretending they can trust the peer sitting next to them.

Workplace Reality vs Workplace Fairytale 

We inherited a lot of workplace structures, power dynamics, ways of doing things. And they served us well. We created great businesses, nonprofits, and governmental organizations where people are working so hard to do good. But let’s make it easier. 

It’s time to do better, go further, aim higher. Just like today we drive cars, fly planes, and take trains, and there was a day when we rode horses. 

We don’t have to do workplaces today the way that we did them 50 years ago, 10 years ago, even a day ago. 

So why wait? 

Start Transforming Your Workplace Today

There is not one path to a joyful workplace; there are many paths.

There are things you can do NOW, today, to start creating better connections, driving better results, and laying the groundwork for a joyful, positive workplace. (EmployeeWORKS can help with this!)

A key place to start is with communication. This is an essential step to achieving your workplace fairytale: Start building or enhancing safer places for conversations. 

Create environments where you can talk to anyone, anytime, about anything. This starts with listening and non-reaction (e.g. not having negative reactions to people sharing their opinions, even if they are not popular and you don’t agree). 

When you work to create safe places for conversation, your team will start to connect, share, and create solutions together in greater ways. This is a big step in your journey to the joyful workplace. 

Ready to Take the Next Step? 

Are you intrigued? Are you ready to start transforming your workplace? 

We recognize this is a big change. Big change is best taken intentionally, thoughtfully, planfully. I’m personally dedicated and committed to helping any leader who is interested in taking this journey. Schedule a free consultation to get closer to achieving your workplace fairytale, today.

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