By | Elaine Bennett
Most people in the business that happy and engaged employees are ready to put on a much stronger performance and go above and beyond to achieve corporate goals. Speaking in cold numbers the companies that manage to achieve these qualities can count on a 21% stronger staff performance.
What we often fail to realize is that employees will never feel safe or happy if the company can’t offer a tangible sense of physical, mental, and professional security. And all these considerations don’t even take into account the financial consequences or the damage your assets can sustain in the case of any kind of security breach.
All these things should point out that you should take decisive actions to make your organization secure from any kind of external or internal issues. Let’s see if we can help you along the way.
Create an open-minded and transparent environment
The real sense of security starts at a psychological level. That is why, if you want to get the best of your employees you need to create an open-minded, inclusive, and friendly environment where they will feel encouraged to freely express their thoughts and provide valuable feedback. You should also be ready to provide such feedback in an assertive and constructive manner. Also, you should try to be as transparent as possible and inform about all important decisions in the company, why they are made, and how they benefit the organization. Only then you will have foundations for security initiatives you plan on taking.
Promote healthy conflict
Of course, you shouldn’t openly push your staff into arguments which can damage interpersonal relationships. On the other hand, they shouldn’t be afraid to give their arguments a voice and, if needed, defend their arguments in a spirited debate. Not only they will gain some necessary workplace confidence – these debates can produce very valuable insights you can use to push your organization further. Your role as a sort of mediator should be to use your meetings and gatherings to ask workers to provide such insights, openly ask for differing opinions, and set clear boundaries they should not breach.
Secure the premises
The benefits will be twofold. First, you will deter and ward off the breaches that could potentially cost your business a small fortune. Second, you will incite a stronger sense of security among your staff. So, you can start by installing flat-top gates that will secure your lot while still providing an excellent street view that will discourage most burglars. When you are done, you can proceed to other important tools like security cameras, motion-triggered lights, alarms, and smoke detectors. Reinforcing the entrance doors and putting security bars on lower-story windows should make your premises a small fortress.
Take care of the cybersecurity
The physical breaches are not the only threat to the security of your company. Last year, cybercrimes caused damage of as much as $16.4 billion a day or $190,000 each passing second. Your employees and your company need to be secured from these invaders. You can do that by using top-tier antivirus and antimalware protection, moving your digital assets to a secure cloud environment, and providing your employees with safety guidelines they can use to protect themselves from phishing and other aggressive online actions. This way they will feel much more empowered and ready to tackle difficult challenges.
Improve workplace safety
You can do this regardless of the industry or the position you need to address. In any of the cases, your staff will feel more confident and relaxed if you provide them with clear instructions on how they should properly use the equipment, identify the workplace hazards and make adaptations to address them and publically display the procedures they can use if things, at some point, go downhill. If possible, most of these guidelines should be displayed in the form of easy-to-understand signs, labels, and color-coded displays. The more intuitive these things are the safer and more confident your employees will feel.
Promote physical and mental wellness
Wellness is quickly becoming one of the most important metrics companies use to describe the satisfaction of their workers. Do your best then to improve the mental and physical well-being of your workforce as much as possible. Provide the employees with high-quality medical services, organize workshops that should promote mental wellbeing and healthy lifestyle habits, and, why not, provide the staff with small gym corners where they should be able to break a sweat and blow off some steam. If they enjoy some other activities like gaming give them what they need to charge their mental batteries.
We hope these few examples showed you a general direction you should take to make your employees feel safe and secure, and as a result much more engaged and highly motivated. Of course, these are only the top mentions and any step you take that untimely improves the satisfaction of your workforce is a good one. So, do your best to put these initiatives into motion. The present-day business world is too complicated, hasty, and competitive as it is. Don’t make this situation even harder by denying your staff a chance to reach their full potential.
