How to Create an Inclusive Work Environment

Making employees feel wanted and included in a working environment is pivotal to a business’s success. When it is achieved, half the battle is won because when employees feel valued in such a way, they produce better work at a better rate.

So, if you’re a business owner, don’t underestimate the importance of creating an inclusive work environment. Better still, get straight to work in making your working environment far more inclusive than it’s ever been.

Give everybody some responsibility

No employee wants to feel like just another brick in the wall or cog in the wheel, so give them some responsibility. Give them a reason to think they are appreciated by bouncing ideas off of them regarding your business. Make them feel as if you truly want them by allowing them to have a say in meetings, and even by rotating who runs your meetings.

When you give your employees some responsibility in these types of ways, you will create an inclusive working environment all businesses will be envious of. More importantly, you’ll create a working environment where everybody wants to work.

While you’re at it, show your employees some gratitude by engaging them in discussions about their life outside of work.

Make sure assumptions are left outside the office

Assumptions can and will make you see employees in certain ways, even before they produce any work for you. When this occurs, biases are formed, and prejudice rears its head, and neither are healthy in a working environment.

To create a healthy, inclusive working environment in your business, you need to leave your assumptions outside of the office. You need to give everybody a clean slate, regardless of who they are, what they've done or where they've come from, and you need to judge everybody based on the way they work for you and the person you believe them to be.

Don’t forget your remote workers

Today, more and more businesses are opting for the employment of remote workers. When you take into account this type of employee demands nothing in the way of overheads, they offer different geographical perspectives, they can work in different time zones, and they have the ability to produce more work at tighter deadlines, you can see why!

When you decide remote workers are the way forward for your business, however, just remember to not forget them. Include them in your business’s working environment, even though they’re not physically there. If you don’t, you won’t inspire them to do their best work for you, meaning you’d be wasting your time and money employing them.

How do you inspire a remote employee and make them feel included? First, you should look into providing them with a space to work in should they want it. Sometimes, as appealing as it sounds initially, working from home just doesn’t work because of its lack of a ‘proper’ working environment. So, by paying for a space for them to work in, such as a coworking space offered by The Brew, you will help them to feel included in the culture of being at a work. As a result, your remote employee’s work rate will improve.

If you want your business to succeed, then it needs to have an inclusive working environment. It needs to be an environment all employees’ feel safe, included and welcome. You can follow the above tips to create a place every employee feels at home, valued and appreciated for the hard work they do.