4Cs Blog: Happy Employees = Happy Customers

Having a strong and appropriate company culture can give you a big competitive advantage. It helps improve efficiency, and it makes it easier to recruit the right people to make your company grow. 

But culture is tricky. It develops on its own, yet with guidance, it can be steered in one direction or another. 
As your company expands, the culture you have will change. But this change does not have to be negative. If you can harness the transformation, you can not only preserve your company culture, but you can nurture it to become a real competitive edge.

Here are some things to consider to help you maintain a positive company culture as you scale up:

Stressed-out employees aren't productive workers. For that reason alone, on top of the interpersonal benefits, companies should always be working to reduce stress in the workplace.

It isn't an easy task. With deadlines to meet and clients to land, everyone will occasionally be on edge. But by implementing certain policies and procedures, any workplace can improve in this area. 

The key is for HR and management to sit down and discuss this issue on an ongoing basis. By continually assessing and monitoring progress, business improvement strategies can be instituted to keep things running more smoothly. The following four tips will help any organization start to destress. 

1. Set Clear Expectations 

Few things are as frustrating as moving goalposts. When managers change expectations or — even more infuriatingly — deadlines, it not only makes that specific project more difficult to complete, but also leaves employees swimming in uncertainty about the future. 

Many psychological studies indicate this type of management is highly unnerving for employees.

While it’s essential to build solid bonds with your team, defining areas of respect, authority and productivity can be challenging when navigating the line between boss and friend. Instant Offices looks into the implications and shares some tips on how to be a boss and a friend.

The idea of friendship applies as much to our personal lives as it does to our professional ones. In fact, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs places a sense of belonging right up there with some of our most basic human needs. Studies conducted by Gallup, show having friends in the workplace makes you more engaged and happy, and that companies enjoy higher profitability and customer loyalty when friendships among colleagues are common. But how do you navigate the fine line of being a friend who also has to set boundaries as a boss?

Can Bosses and Employees Be Friends?

This year, a majority of private U.S. companies have or plan to give out raises averaging 4.3 percent to their best and brightest employees, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. But not all companies are in a position to reward employees with monetary incentives this year, which, of course, could have an impact on employee retention. 

However, there are some job perks that will make some consider working for less. In fact, more than 4 in 5 workers say they're willing to work for less if their employers offer some other form of compelling non-financial incentives, including long-term job security, flexible office hours and a management structure that emphasizes mentorship and a better career trajectory. 

Here are three ways to boost employee job satisfaction beyond giving out raises.

Women work for free for more than two months of the year because of the gender pay gap. To help women fight for equal pay on International Women’s Day, we want to provide some support and advice.

Asking for a raise can take you completely out of your comfort zone but in today’s economic climate if you don’t ask you often don’t get what you think you are worth. Here are some tips on getting that raise you feel you deserve from Instant Offices:

How often should you expect a raise?
Let’s face it we live in tough economic times at the moment. In the past it used to be the norm to expect a raise once a year, that is no longer the case and it’s typically up to you to request a salary review.

Preparation and planning
Determining how much you should earn is not easy but there are helpful salary calculators that will help determine the range you should be expecting. The other opportunity is to look for job adverts that cover your skills and experience to get a benchmark. If you do that you need to add an element of realism to the process so don’t set your expectations at the highest salary, pick the average across the job ads you have researched.

Employee retreats can be really useful in building rapport and strengthening workplace relationships. The best locations should have a combination of excellent business facilities, working spaces, and a good choice of activities and sights to see. We’ve taken a look at the five best cities where you can take your employees on a rewarding corporate retreat:

Las Vegas
Las Vegas is a city where business and pleasure go hand in hand. Not only is it known as the entertainment capital of the world, but it is also home to three of the largest convention centres in America, including the massive Las Vegas Convention Center, which has a staggering 3.2 million square feet of space. Another great place to convene is at MEET Las Vegas, a unique high-tech three-storey complex that offers businesses the chance to hold meetings, training events or to socialise and network. If you want to kill two birds with one stone, then you can arrange your meetings at a venue like the T-Mobile Arena, which offers luxury suites and private rooms overlooking major sporting events and musical acts on the arena bowl. Once you and your team have concluded all serious matters, you can take them down to the famous strip, or you can get tickets to one of the famous casino residency acts that are regularly hosted in Sin City venues.

Agile working creates an efficient business environment by giving employees the freedom and flexibility to work in different areas of an office, or remotely via hot-desking, when and how they choose. With less constraints and more flexibility, the focus is more about performance and quality and less about where tasks are undertaken. Instant Offices have taken a closer look into Agile Working:

What is Agile Working?

By looking at work as an activity, rather than a place, agile working focuses on eliminating any barriers that stand in the way of achieving objectives. 70% of organisations are predicted to adopt some sort of flexible working by 2020 and agile working is at the heart of this transition to a more adaptable way of viewing the workplace.

Benefits of Agile Working

• Improved quality of working relationships, both internal and client-facing
• Reduced costs
• Increased productivity
• Talent acquisition and retention

One quarter of today's workforce is now virtual, recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows. In 2015, 24 percent of employed Americans did some or all of their work from home. The numbers are even higher in some professions, with 38 percent of workers in business, management and financial operations doing some of their work from home and 35 percent of workers in professional and related occupations working from home. 

This trend presents companies with the challenge of keeping virtual workers engaged. Only 30 percent of fully remote employees are engaged with their jobs, compared to 33 percent of all employees, placing them among the least engaged of all workers, a Gallup poll reports. Here are three strategies business leaders and HR departments can use to help build a strong company culture that keeps virtual workers engaged.

In the past 12 months, the global hybrid and co-working office space market has grown an astonishing 18%. That means the market is now twice the size it was back in 2013 and accounts for a third of all flexible space across the world.

But what is driving this growth? John Williams, Head of Marketing at the Instant Group, believes it could be the growing need for workspace on demand.

Workspace on Demand
The idea of ‘Workspace on Demand’ revolves around businesses wanting more control, more flexibility and scalable business strategies that work for them, wherever and whenever they need them. Businesses have been expecting this from their HR, payroll and IT for ages, and are now looking to their properties to deliver the same flexibility.

As a business owner, you likely spend a great deal of time at the office and doing everything you can to ensure your customers are always happy. Of course, there's a dedicated team of people who assist in this endeavor and are right in the thick of things alongside you: your hard-working employees. 

Now that the holiday season is fast approaching, you'll no doubt want to do something to reward and thank your employees for their ongoing dedication and loyalty. And since you all spend so much time at work, you may want to focus on giving gifts that your valued employees can put to good use and enjoy while they're on the job. With that in mind, these three gift ideas are sure to put a smile on your employees’ faces this holiday season, while also helping to showcase your genuine appreciation for their hard work.

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