Environments are pretty fickle things. One moment, everything can be operating well, and in the next moment, one employee walking in with a negative attitude, one difficult customer, or one power outage later can have an entire company up in arms. In any ecosystem, one species in the chain has an effect on the whole system and this can ultimately lead to the downfall of a company, if things aren’t attended to and if attitudes and work ethics aren’t cultivated to created a positive work environment. If you’re looking for ways to create a positive work environment in 2017, there are 3 ways you can do that:

Welcome Creativity

CEO of RedPeg Marketing, Brad Nierenberg, says that the number one step to improve employee morale within a company is to welcome creativity. You must keep an open door policy and be willing to keep your mind open to the thoughts and ideas of employees within your company. You’re all in things together, so when you can allow your workforce to feel like their creativity will be welcomed and encouraged, it’s going to do wonders for the atmosphere of your company. They’ll be happier to come to work, they’ll feel like they’re contributing to the success of the company, and they’ll feel appreciated when you listen to their ideas and concerns.

Relax on the Rules Occasionally

Of course you want to create a professional work environment where everybody knows the rules and you’re looked at in a good light by the world because of the tight ship that you run, but if you want to create a positive work environment, you might think about ways you can relax a bit on the rules occasionally. Every business needs structure, but if you allow there to be casual Friday’s, or you plan to have employee parties every once in awhile, people will feel more at ease in being able to be themselves within a work environment and this will lighten up the mood significantly.

Get In There With Your Employees

If you’re the boss or manager of a company, you might not have an accurate understanding of what things are really like on the front lines of your business. If you really want to make a positive impact, get in there with your employees and get down and dirty and do the work with them.

When they see you’re willing to see what their jobs are like, you’re humble enough to do the grunt work, and you can see what’s really going on, it’s going to help you see what needs to change or what you’re doing well already. Creating a positive environment doesn’t have to be hard, you just have to take the steps to see that the work is done.

By Eddy

Eddy is the editorial columnist in Business Fundas, and oversees partner relationships. He posts articles of partners on various topics related to strategy, marketing, supply chain, technology management, social media, e-business, finance, economics and operations management. The articles posted are copyrighted under a Creative Commons unported license 4.0. To contact him, please direct your emails to [email protected].