The Work-life Insight

Toddlers whine. Most adults figure out how to lose the habit, because it’s toxic. And yet it persists.

Whining is a seductive package deal. When it works, it gets us attention, it lowers expectations, it gains sympathy and it forces people to identify with our pain. And it helps people feel as though they’re not responsible.

Often, the amount of whining is totally unrelated to the level of discomfort, and it seems to increase with how much privilege people perceive they deserve.

So why avoid it?

Because it changes our outlook on the world. When whining becomes a habit, we need to continue it, so we begin to interpret events as opportunities to prove that our whining is justified.

And because over time, people hate being around a whiner. The selfish desires of the habitual whiner eventually become clear. We realize that our shared reality is the world as it is, and that the whiner isn’t actually being singled out. And through practice, we learn that the best way to make things better is to work to improve them, not to demand special treatment. Reminding myself of the perils of whining is helpful indeed.

Optimists run the risk of being disappointed now and then. Whiners are always disappointing.

There’s no place like work. Just before the pandemic hit, Gensler released the U.S. Workplace Survey 2020 research findings, the latest in our research series that measures how people work, as well as the effectiveness and experience of the workplace.

At the time that research was conducted, we asked a now-poignant question: where do people prefer to work? We gave respondents four choices: home, employer’s workplace, a coworking site, or a coffee shop. When their workplace was well-designed to meet their needs, U.S. knowledge workers overwhelming chose the workplace. The workplace mattered.

When we return to the office, it will be anything but a return to normal. While we’ve been working from home, we’ve changed how we work. We’ve built new skills in how to work virtually. We’ve developed new ways to connect with our colleagues, clients, friends, and extended families. We’ve learned that working from home has, in fact, been brutally efficient and productive for most, especially for those trying to work individually.

In Gensler’s new Work From Home (WFH) Survey — research of 2,300+ U.S. knowledge workers across 10 different industries — employees report gains in their ability to complete individual work and in personal creativity. Similarly, a recent McKinsey study finds 60% of businesses report that new remote sales models were proving as much or more effective than traditional channels. Businesses have implemented new platforms and technologies overnight and have worked faster and better than they ever imagined.

For most of my clients, working from home has not been a problem. On the contrary, it has been an accelerator in decision-making, innovation, and shared purpose. Our clients are hoping to foster these new behaviors as they begin to reimagine a new way of working. Their expectations are changing as they reimagine their businesses.

Working from home can be productive, but most people want to return to the workplace.

‍Gensler’s WFH research found that working from home regularly was new to most employees. Only one in 10 U.S. workers regularly worked from home prior to the pandemic. Now that many people have had to work from home, most people look forward to coming back to the office.

According to our research, only 12% of people want to continue to work from home full-time after the pandemic subsides. Most want to go back to the office full-time, or are looking for a balance between the two. The amount varies by industry. On average, most employees want to work from home two-to-three days or less.

We’ve proven we can easily and efficiently work from home. Focus work requiring deep concentration is reported to be exceptionally effective at home, and virtual collaboration also saw an increase in effectiveness as compared to doing both activities in the office. Nevertheless, we can’t effectively do all work activities from home. The workplace not only still matters, it may be more important than ever.

The longer we work apart from colleagues, the more being together matters.

‍While we can focus at home, we can’t easily socialize. Collaborating in person is off-limits. The pandemic has shown that we really miss people. We yearn for interaction and a shared work experience. We miss meetings with coworkers and clients. We miss socializing with our colleagues. We miss impromptu connections. And we miss the learning, coaching, and mentoring that comes naturally just by being together.

According to our survey, the most important reasons employees see for coming into the office include meetings, socializing, connecting with colleagues, and building community. This underscores the fact that being with colleagues in person is an invaluable part of the workplace experience, as is being part of a community that can’t be replaced virtually while working from home.

This is not only changing expectations of how we work, but it’s changing the role of the physical workplace.‍

The role of the post-COVID-19 workplace will shift away from a place where people simply go to work, and into a place where people want to be to meet, socialize, and work with each other. It will shift from a “work” place for individual work to a “convening” place for group work.

The new role of the workplace will be to build community, to reinforce culture and shared purpose and mission, and to strengthen relationships with each other. We might choose to split our work week: working independently at home for intense heads-down work and virtual collaboration meetings, and reserving other days to come together to be with our teams, colleagues, and clients in person.

The design of physical workspaces must change to support this new role with new space types that connect us with each other and support group work. This new design must reinforce the culture, mission, and purpose of organizations in visceral ways, giving each employee an understanding of how their work contributes to the whole when they are present and how it includes them even when they are working from home.

The new workplace must be worth the commute — a human-centric experience where employees feel safe, healthy, and empowered. It must be a place where design can nudge healthy behaviors and people can feel that their work, and their personal well-being, is valued. Just like well-placed stairwells can encourage people to take the stairs instead of elevators, steps such as removing excess seating, installing sanitizing or hand-washing stations, and placing 6-foot floor markers for social distancing can encourage new behaviors. This new workplace must provide a wide range of work settings to empower each person and help them bring their full selves to the workplace to do their mind’s best work. These can include private roomsfor focus, huddle, or phone calls; semiprivate areas for individuals or small teams; whiteboarding or brainstorming areas; and individual settings.

COVID-19 has been a huge disruptor in every aspect of our lives. But the eternal optimist in me believes something better will emerge. Virtual platforms and tools have level-set the playing field and an empowered equity has emerged. The coronavirus has forced us to reexamine our priorities about what’s important and what really matters. It is allowing us reimagine a new workplace where people come together, reinforce culture, and strengthen relationships. I’m incredibly optimistic about this new workplace where people matter more than ever.

Credit:
Post Author: Janet Pogue McLaurin
Website: https://www.gensler.com

‘Work environment’ is probably the most talked-about subject when it comes to employee development. But current work scenarios do not seem to care much about the happiness factor of their workplace.

We feel it is essential to create a workplace that is fulfilling, and which encourages the employees to have better relationships at work. This can work like magic when it comes to scaling your business and making it a more profitable one.

So, in this post, we are going to take a deep dive into what makes a workplace happier and what is it that the present leaders should do to make sure their team gets the best work environment ever.

What Does Happiness At Work Mean?

Happiness at the workplace should be defined while taking into consideration the overall sense of enjoyment at work, the ability of the team to gracefully handle setbacks, connecting with everyone amicably, and finally, that your work not just matters to yourself, but also to your organization and beyond.

The happiness at work can be tied to every desirable outcome that the employees, employer, workplace, and the complete organization hope for. One can tie the feeling of happiness with being healthy and becoming more creative and efficient in solving problems; producing more with less and innovating his way to the top of the career.

But, what about when the same ‘happy’ people at work, face setbacks? Well, in the face of adversity, these people tend to see the bigger picture and have a low inclination towards stress. They have better-coping abilities and can recover from adverse conditions with ease. Not just that, happiness at work can also result in people getting better at resolving internal and external conflicts.

Also, when you work towards making your workplace a happy place, you indirectly are making people happier and more likable. They’ll become more trustworthy and deserving of better roles as they develop leadership qualities in them.

Now, that we have seen what happiness at work mean and what it brings with itself, it’s important to know how to go around this whole ‘happiness’ thing without messing your workplace up.

How to Work Towards Happiness at Work?

Well, there’s no simple answer to this question. But, if you will study different workplaces and try to match the results, four key pillars of happiness at work will emerge. These are – Purpose, Engagement, Resilience, and Kindness. These happiness pillars, as we call them, affect the workplace on personal, social, and structural levels. Let’s discuss them, shall we?

1. Purpose

When you talk about the core values of an employee, ‘purpose’ tends to be a great reflection of what they give more importance to. Therefore, it is important to align their everyday behaviors and decisions with their core values. This generally leads to making people at work feel more purposeful,.Morten Hansen, a management professor at UC Berkley, defines purpose in a way that really makes sense to both individual and organizational levels. He tells that people who have a sense of purpose are the ones who feel they are making valuable contributions to the organization or society, providing meaning to lives and not harming anyone.

2. Engagement

People generally enjoy at work when they feel that they are being engaged in the decision made by the organization. To increase engagement at work, leaders should prioritize fun, humor, creativity, and playfulness at work. Also, giving people more ownership over what they are going to do on a daily basis, schedules, tasks, personal development, and more can significantly improve their engagement as now they feel that they have control over their job at the workplace. Lastly, it’s important for leaders to work at making schedules that are less hectic, and a working space that is more immersive to the flow of work.

3. Resilience

The overall happiness at work, as mentioned earlier, has a lot to do with people’s ability to cope and learn from setbacks, failures, and disappointments. Resilience doesn’t mean working in a way that prevents setbacks and difficulties. It means creating better ways to overcome challenges and make the workplace an authentic fighting-spirit.One way to implement these groundbreaking changes to your workplace is encouraging people to become more and more mindful to get over the learned habits of self-criticizing or playing the blame-game, or feeling disappointed by thinking about the past setbacks and upsets. These habits can make it really hard for people to work as a team. Therefore, it is important to weave mindfulness into the work environment.

4. Kindness

Most people spend almost 40% of their lives at work. To make the workplace their ‘second home’ in truest of its feeling, it is important to make people orient their thoughts and actions towards caring for their colleagues. Being kind to everyone around you will make your employees develop dignity and respect. Not just kindness, the people at work should practice empathy, compassion, and gratitude to make their work environment and relationships trustable. This will result in more commitment and productivity from the employees and will definitely make your workplace essentially a happier place to be.

7 Best Practices for Leaders to Create a Happy Workplace

1. Employee Development

Every action and decision taken by the leaders at a workplace should be towards the betterment and development of their employees and workplace. A happier workplace is the one that is completely committed to developing employee-management and employee-employee relationships. There is no sure-shot way to get this right but to experiment with different plans, failing, learning, and then experimenting more. The process of the employee development should, however, follow the 4 pillars of making a happy workplace.

2. Flexibility and Understanding

Innovation and new ideas develop in an organization that provides their employees with great flexibility at work. The employees are happier when their supervisors give them an ample amount of room to make mistakes and experiment with their work. Also, employees that find their organization to be very much willing to take risks of allowing them to make mistakes, tend to have a great commitment towards the company goals and objectives.Here’s a chart that will help you understand what drives employees to produce great work.

3. Avoiding Work Burnout

Leaders at work should work overtime to develop ideas and plans that could help their team to experience less work burnout. It is not just about the number of hours they spent at work, but also about how they feel while they are at the job. Do they feel appreciated when they put in extra time and effort to get tasks done? If your employees do not feel appreciated or have doubt if they even matter to the company, they will resent spending every extra second they are at your office working.

4. Getting Rid of Obstacles

The work employees do at your workplace should be seamless and have no obstacles that disturb their flow and not help them achieve their level of productivity. Obstacles in a work environment most certainly result in low job satisfaction. Leaders and management should not wait for exit interviews to know what’s wrong in the company but should act proactively to figure out the problems employee face when working in their organization.

5. Resolving Conflicts

Like every other family on the planet, your office family will also have conflicts that require attention and positive reinforcement. Leaders should not assume that a happy workplace is essentially a place with zero conflicts. Conflicts are sometimes passive and can become dominant at a very inappropriate moment. This has to be avoided at all costs. The only way to go around solving conflicts is to make sure the management works in a constructive manner – making employees feel safe sharing the conflicts they experience at work.

6. Meaningful Work

To cultivate a happier work environment, leaders need to develop programs that make the employees more mindful at work. This can effectively help them tie meaning to their work – something which is quite lacking in the present business organizations around the globe. The relationship between happiness and meaning is profound and should be well understood to make your employees feel that their work is providing great meaning to the organization. This feeling and sense of contribution leads to a highly gratifying job satisfaction

7. Being Appreciated

A study done on Globoforce, a software manufacturing company, found that a staggering 80% of the employees feel that being appreciated and recognized for the work they do in the organization makes them feel more satisfied and cared for. If leaders want to make the organization a better place to work, they need to come up with a policy that makes sure the people who are contributing to the betterment of the organization get recognized and rewarded regularly. Employees at an organization need to know that their happiness in the company matters more than anything else and you will see their productivity shooting through the roof.

WorkSocial's Mission to Bring Happiness Back to Work

‘Happiness at Work’ is a cornerstone that people attached to WorkSocial feel most proud of. Their ability to boost autonomy and productivity by having great personal connections with the workers has helped them create a coworking space that is immersive, more engaging, and motivating.Their mission to bring happiness back to work is backed by the actions taken to provide the people working at their coworking space a sense of belongingness that goes a long way in helping them build strong connections and establish great friendships within the work sphere.‍

Final VerdictI

t’s true that today employees feel a high level of disengagement with their organizations and have to fight for their interests and their contributions to be noticed and cared for. It’s a reality that their previous generations sensed but did not give it any attention. Now, when more and more purpose-driven millennials and Generation Z are entering the work culture, it will become a challenge for leaders and managers to create a healthy and happy workplace.

Let WorkSocial create a happy work environment for you so that you can focus on making your business more productive and profitable.

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WorkSocial invented the office space rent culture as we once see it today. Since March 2020, the team has worked hard to has drastically changed how people go to work. Effectively silencing the ongoing debate about what role the office will play in the future. While some companies are dedicated to a remote working arrangement, others are eager to return to the workplace. Large and small companies have tapped into the coworking space in New Jersey offered by WorkSocial.

Although it appears that this could be bad news for the office industry for Large Landlords, it may actually create new opportunities unlike any other for tenants. Experts have predicted an office space that was more digitally integrated for years now, and this change has been accelerated due to the pandemic.

Conversations about the office space operators can implement digital tools to make working in and out of the office a seamless experience for employees.

For instance, many companies have opted to operate with a distributed workforce with the deployment of offices at coworking space. This arrangement is not a one-size-fits-all approach, so business leaders should consider adopting satellite offices outside of the company’s main hub to better accommodate employees. Such workspaces would be equipped with the appropriate health and safety precautions while providing users access to digital tools that make collaborating and meeting with colleagues easy.

In doing so, property teams can also have a better idea of how their occupiers are using their space now and in the future. This provides better insight into how to configure the office’s design and layout to create the ideal office for users.

Additionally, adopting such offices can help companies become more flexible and agile. This means short-term leases and the ability to scale up or down as needed

Contact us to build your new Shared Office Space in New Jersey

n our digital world when many interactions happen through screens, WorkSocial aims to provide one-on-one connections and strong interpersonal relationships and growth throug shared office space for rent.

Every consultant at Bain has a mentor, including younger employees who are partnered with senior employees. Additional professional development is provided in specialized affinity groups, such as Blacks at WorkSocial, Latinos at WorkSocial, and Veterans at WorkSocila, which give employees a chance to find commonalities and guidance with their peers.

Every company can and should have mentors. If your organization doesn’t have an established mentoring program, create one or find a mentor on your own. Building those connections and having someone in your corner can give you a huge advantage in your career and your life.

Building those connections and having someone in your corner can give you a huge advantage in your career and your life.

Guide to Engage and Motivate Employees

The time to deeply engage with employees has never been more important and relevant, than in today’s self-isolation and social distancing times. The COVID-19 pandemic has redefined the ways companies conduct business and how employees can work and contribute to their growth.

Travel restrictions have made work from home and meetings via online video conferencing the new norm, with face to face interactions being scheduled only for very important issues. Employees are undergoing fear, anxiety, and depression about the uncertainty that the pandemic brings, getting exposed to it and spreading it to loved ones.

As per a survey conducted by Gallup US, 81% of the employees expect a negative effect on their workplace due to COVID-19. All these factors are gradually making employees less productive and motivated in managing the flow of work and keeping the businesses running.

How to keep employees engaged at work is the key question many company owners and departmental heads are facing today, with the survival of their company in some cases being dependent on it. During the time of crisis, strongest organisations are those that are finding innovative ways to engage and motivate their employees.

How to get Employees Engagement?

Employee engagement needs to no longer be restricted as an activity by the human resources team, but shared as an equal responsibility by the entire company. As a part of their employee engagement strategy, companies can follow these 9 key steps, to keep employees engaged and motivated so that they can develop a highly motivated and inspired organization.

Make employee engagement high priority in management

The top line managers are those who are directly in touch with their team and understand their situations better. Making them responsible to keep the employee engaged and motivated, will help develop a better working bond which will make the employees feel more connected and cared for by their company.For this to be effective, top-line managers need to schedule at least 5-10% of their work hours on interactive sessions which discuss the issue i.e. how to keep your team engaged and motivated and then follow-up the same with practical implementation.

Assist while working remotely

While not working from home, employees tend to lose a sense of belonging. A research by Hubspot indicated that 69% of employees have reported to work harder if they are better appreciated. The management can increase their involvement and engagement by creating a virtual office, building a forum where employees can share their personal and professional updates, assign collaborative tasks with fun games and quizzes, motivating them by giving away perks, recognition and incentives.

Trust your employees

Working from home has its challenges right from cooking up meals to taking care of children and assisting them with their school work, which would ideally not have been the case had the parents been at their workplace.However, since the times have changed, companies need to adapt and ensure that they don't impose strict working hours or login times on their employees, but trust them enough, to complete their work as required.

Schedule impromptu fun times

Remember the birthday parties and coffee get-together in the office, and their importance when building employee bonding. Well, they are still highly effective, it's just that the locations have changed. Schedule an online coffee meet and even celebrate employee birthdays online, to make them realize that the times may have changed, but they are still special for you.

Be Flexible

With lock-downs in place and strict scheduling of the times that essential items will be available, make sure you are not too rigid with your team on their word days or hours. Give them the freedom to select their work hours, so that they can also safely buy all the essentials they require for their home.The flexibility you offer your employees with their working times will show that you relate to their situation and are there to help them get through it as one team.

One way you could do this is by avoiding scheduling meeting hours in the morning when parents may be busy with housework or setting up their child's online classes.

Help people connect and share their experiences

During these social isolation times, people working remotely are bound to feel lonely and out of place which could promote anxiety among them. Schedule online sessions where employees can share their experiences and how they are managing during these times and how they went out of the way to help someone in need.These sessions will help keep employees motivated and realize they are not alone, in these turbulent times.

Schedule counseling sessions

Not all employees are the same and managing the diverse needs of all of them at the workplace was never easy. The challenge has grown many folds now, as they can no longer physically interact and share their needs or problems with you.In such scenarios, it is advisable to have senior team members counsel and interact with their team members on work or personal related issues and also provide assistance if required on the home front.

The senior management of the company also needs to spend time and organize sessions on how to get employees engaged at work for better productivity, so that they can adopt the latest and best practices.

Set meaningful goals

It is challenging for managers to meet their goals, when their team members are not able to be collectively present in the company facility. This is the time when work suffers the most. Lack of discipline and distractions can be the primary reasons. By setting meaningful goals and setting clear achievable deliverables can enable employees to work efficiently, track their results and bring improvements, accordingly.

Be Communicative

Nothing helps an employee bond more with his company than being a part of its important events, successes, and being updated on the latest news and happenings within the company.Now is a good time to create an internal website or newsletter that periodically shares all the important news and how they contributed to the growth of the company, to create a stronger sense of bonding and association with the company.

While the world faces the worst ever crisis, in centuries everyone needs to gear up and be prepared for the upcoming changes on how we conduct our business and work together. As economies slowly open up and governments rush to create a safe environment for all, there will be more challenges ahead.

If you are looking for answers on how to get your employees engaged and regain their confidence, it would be advisable to spend some more time listening to and understanding their needs. This will help them keep the employees engaged with the company, and face the upcoming crisis together.

Landlords are as interchangeable as car parts. Some of them are more like Allen-Keys. They are difficult to use, they have a unique fit and cost too much for little value.

I wish the small commercial tenants get together  one day and tell our Landlords to F**-off

WorkSocial is a futurist, business-driven platform that is responsible for supporting up and coming entrepreneurs. The organization aims to instil creativity and encourage ideas that can potentially change the world as we know it. The motto of WorkSocial is to create such a happy and healthy environment that helps startups to grow as a community.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jersey City, New Jersey, 21 August 2020- During the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, WorkSocial is acting as a responsible business of the community. It has taken an initiative of the ‘Jersey City Recovery Program’ to support black business and enterprises in times of distress. WorkSocial is a socially and politically aware business organization that promotes cultural, racial, and religious diversity in the work environment. During these times, WorkSocial has aligned itself with the cause of supporting Black businesses.

As part of their Jersey City Recovery Program, WorkSocial has announced membership incentives for entrepreneurs belonging to the black community. Apart from membership incentives, WorkSocial, for the first time, provides the option of Total Business Enablement for small to medium black businesses. This option entails benefits of financial and workplace support regarding the office set up. In short, WorkSocial, Jersey City coworking space, is delivering the option of ‘tell us what you need’ to the community’s black business and entrepreneurs.

Furthermore, WorkSocial has also extended its Recovery Program to Black-owned vendors and small enterprises. WorkSocial encourages members of the black community that have creative and inspiring business ideas and want to execute them in a safe and secure environment. To avail of their membership incentives and to be a part of this amazing business opportunity, black-owned businesses have to click ‘Work With Us’ to join the WorkSocial business platform.

These opportunities include providing shared working space to black-owned startups, a safe and secure environment, free and healthy foods, and snacks. Apart from working spaces, WorkSocial also provides 24/7 access to personalized conference rooms, training rooms, virtual office plans, and executive office space.

The foremost aim of the Jersey City Recovery Program is to provide a professional, safe, and secure working environment that prospers young entrepreneurs’ thought processes and promotes creativity. As part of their Jersey City Recovery Program, they have revamped their shared working space. WorkSocial has added additional facilities for their clients that take a step forward in bringing creative solutions to world problems.

Since the aim of WorkSocial is to facilitate their clients and keep them happy during work hours, they have launched their Client Growth Initiative. Through this initiative, WorkSocial promises to provide the entrepreneurs with whatever facilities they need. These facilities can include Advertising, SEO marketing, and other Search Engine Optimization options. Apart from this, WorkSocial provides a Virtual Receptionist to their clients. The purpose of this Virtual Receptionist is to ensure that the clients do not miss any single opportunity of growth.

In the case of financial instability, WorkSocial is now providing Short Term Funding to the most promising startup projects. Apart from these exclusive facilities, WorkSocial also has ultra-high-speed internet, state of the art furniture, and built-in audiovisual room setting for conferences. It has separate workspaces for economic, virtual, and confidential work-related businesses. It also provides free for all healthy cafe system.

For any startup that has game-changing ideas and is looking for a professional working space to turn their vision into reality, WorkSocial offers 24/7 concierge and renting services. WorkSocial also values the importance of your unique ideas and provides workplace security and cybersecurity options.

As part of the Jersey City Recovery Program, the last initiative is dedicated to the issues related to global health concerns. Due to the ongoing health crisis, offices are required to maintain social distancing and limit the number of employees in a single workplace. This has resulted in a shortage of space for employees to execute their ideas successfully. In times when companies are barely able to keep themselves afloat, space diversification and construction seems an impossible option. This is where WorkSocial promises to provide you with a shared co-working space.

As part of their initiative, WorkSocial has expanded its renting services from small and medium startups to big firms. WorkSocial is providing employees with Work-Reassurance of health during these times of stress due to the dire shortage of safe and medically secure environment. As part of their health protocol, ever co or shared working space is strictly following the current health business SOPs. These include obligated physical distancing between the employees and 24/7 cleaning and sanitizing facility. To ensure complete safety protocols, the workplace setup and furniture have been redesigned into a reimagined workplace setting.

WorkSocial values the business dynamics of its clients; therefore, even amidst the current health crisis, WorkSocial continues to provide a solution for a social distancing workplace environment. Without disruption to your business thought process, you can continue working in a state of the art working space, conference rooms, and well stock kitchen. Every station of the workplace is equipped with proper sanitization equipment. This has provided startups an alternative solution to online video meetings and has allowed them to continue their regular business operations while keeping the health of their employees a priority.

This new Jersey City Recovery Program has set WorkSocial apart from other space renting services. WorkSocial continues to be politically and socially aware while being proactive in the face of the world health crisis.

Media Contact

‍Natasha Mohan

WorkSocial

111 Town Square Place, Jersey City, NJ2012108255

‍worksocial.works

COVID 19 has created an unprecedented situation in the world. But while the world copes with the impact of the pandemic on economic structures, a new horizon of innovation has taken birth. All sectors have been severely hit, notably transportation, automobiles, aviation, manufacturing, tourism and hospitality tourism, etc. Many businesses have successfully adapted to the work situation. The lockdown has led almost every sector to go deep into the digitization of businesses.

Analyzing forthcomings risk and preparing an appropriate plan of action is the inevitable characteristics of an entrepreneur. However, the sheer scale of the risk caused by the pandemic is unprecedented. Operating from home yet assuring smooth functioning of products and services is the new normal that entrepreneurs have synced themselves with.