Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2011; its advice for times of crisis refers to the economic crisis of that period.
Employers are increasingly aware of how important it is to create a good working climate, although achieving it is not always easy, since it is hard to end the differences between workers themselves, and even between workers and section heads.
Every worker’s dream is a job they enjoy, one where they don’t feel sorry for themselves when Monday comes around, wrapped in the dread of having to go to work. An employer’s dream, besides having a company that generates high profits, is to have a workforce that, in their absence, keeps the company running and looks after it as if the business were their own.
A good working climate starts at the bottom, even before someone is hired. Joining a company where your own merit and productivity let you climb the organizational chart will make that worker strive constantly to reach their goals.
The working climate continues with extra pay for meeting targets. When a worker who makes no effort earns the same as one who keeps up a steady pace, it usually causes a lot of resentment within a company. The same goes for an incompetent section head who got the job not on merit but because they were a relative or friend of someone in the company. Incompetence can be hidden for a while, but sooner or later it comes to light.
The working climate improves when all the workers are like a family, a close-knit group fighting for a common goal, led by an honest leader who credits much of their success to the team.
All this, combined with a competitive salary, even if it is based mostly on meeting targets, will give your company more creative workers, and therefore entrepreneurs inside your own company, who will bring you the ideas you need to add new services or products, or simply ways to improve any area where the company is a bit weak.
In many cases you have to find out where the company’s problem lies: which worker is causing trouble, or who in the company is damaging this climate. If improving things means firing people and hiring new ones, you will come out ahead in the long run.
“Better an employee who is angry at being fired than a happy, grateful incompetent inside the company.”
Listen to the people who work for you as if they were good customers. Listen to their problems, their complaints and any constructive criticism that can help you improve.
In times of crisis, try to make the fear of dismissal disappear, and send out a general message that with effort, work and a good team you will all come out stronger. Employees should know that a crisis is a great opportunity to grow within the company: anyone who helps manage it will be rewarded in time, once the storm has passed, and will also become a more self-confident employee for having delivered results in difficult times.
According to several studies, workers at a number of listed companies were first surveyed to measure the working climate there (The best companies to work for in Spain), which are not necessarily the ones that pay the most, something we also looked at back then (The companies that pay the most). A later study found that the companies with the supposedly best working climate were the ones with the fewest sick leaves. When an illness is combined with being unhappy at work, we end up staying in bed longer.
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