This research is being carried out in order to learn about the methods, which can be used in order to improve the workplace environment. In order to gain information about the above topic a literature review will be conducted. Literature review is a very essential part of a research. Literature review is a secondary source of information. It is very useful in acquiring required information. Moreover, it is also a very reliable source of gaining information; as information gained through this process is generated from books, journals, articles, government records or any previous research on the same topic etc. As information acquired through literature review comes from these established sources therefore, it becomes a very reliable source of knowledge. In this research, literature review will be helpful in learning about workplace environment, importance of improving it and methods through which this improvement can be brought about.

With the help of this literature review, one can learn about many aspects of an organization’s work environment. These aspects are: – the methods of creating a good work environment, the importance of work environment, consequences of not having proper work environment or having a hostile work environment, importance of health and safety factors in work environment. Therefore, this literature review will be helpful in learning about the methods, which can help an organization to improve its work environment.

Workplace Environment

Heath (2006) states, the biggest goal of all the business organization is to increase their productivity, thus decreasing their cost of production and making high profits. Although, there is very less amount of effort, which these organizations make in order to increase their productivity. Many employers have a very wrong view that productivity can be increased by giving their employees good pay package and timely increments for their work. What these employers are not aware of is that there are many other factors, which affects the performance of the employees in an organization. One of the major factors, which have an impact on the motivation level of the employees and their performance, is the workplace environment.

The author says that the level of innovation of an employee, his performance in a team, his commitment to the job and other such factors are determined by the immediate work environment that the employee is surrounded with and his/her engagement level with the organization. It has been proved in many studies that many employees leave their organizations due to bad experiences with their immediate supervisors. This shows that workplace environment plays an important role in an employee’s professional life. There are very limited numbers of employees, in every organization, whose requirements can be fulfilled simply by providing them with monetary benefits. The major part of the employees require more than just monetary. They want healthy workplace environment where they can work in harmony with their team members and their supervisors (Heath, 2006).

Work environment is a mixture of many factors, which when come together form the environment of an organization. These factors are: – goal setting, workplace incentives, defined processes, performance feedback, Role congruity, mentoring, resource availability and supervisor support. All these factors together have an impact on the performance of an employee. Therefore, in order to gain better results from the employees, it becomes very essential that they should be provided with proper work environment factors.

Goal setting, for every employee is a very important task and employees want they should also be involved in setting their goals and performance measures. This factor can easily be taken care of by deciding these factors through an informal meet between the employee and his/her supervisor. This will allow all the employees to be a part of their goal setting procedure, which will influence the employees to perform well in order to achieve goals set by them. Another important factor for creating a good work environment is to provide employees with regular feedback on their performance. The feedback should include both the negative and positive aspects of the employee’s performance. It should not be so that only the mistakes of an employee are being pointed but good performance done by an employee should also be appreciated. Organization should take care that the delivery of the feedback is appropriate, so that the employee does not feel awful after getting a negative feedback. Areas where he/she should improve should be made clear in the feedback so that the employee can improve upon his/her skills.

Next important factor, in order to provide an employee with a cordial environment, is to provide the employee with a job which complies with his/her expectations from the job. The job description and the role which the employee is supposed to perform should be in uniformity with the tasks allocated by the manager. Not only this, the processes of performing the tasks should also be well defined. The process management should be proper and any requirements of the job should be properly communicated to the employees (Taiwo, 2010).

In order to enhance the performance of the employees, it is very important that the organization should determine what motivates their employees. As according to the requirements of the employees and their performance, the employees should be provided with proper workplace incentives. Incentives can be both internal and external like challenging tasks and better compensation. As mentioned above, one of the biggest reason because of which the employees leave organization is due to bad experiences with their managers. Therefore, another important factor for creating a suitable environment for the employees is to provide them with supervisor support. The supervisor’s should be supportive of the employees and help them in performing their tasks. The supervisors should have good interpersonal skills so that they can maintain proper relationship with their employees and enhance their self-confidence. It is very necessary that the supervisor’s should appreciate the employees whenever they do a good job.

An essential requirement of the employees is that they want to learn more and enhance their skills. If a job is not enriching their skills then they might not be interested in doing that job. Therefore, it is very important that the employees should be provided with regular trainings in order to enhance their existing skills and developing new skills. Another important factor to create a better work environment is resource availability. Employees should be provided with required resources so that they can perform well. All the above mentioned factors are required to be present in an organization in order to provide the employees with a good working environment.

Therefore, it can be concluded that work environment consists of those material and abstract factors, which ease the working of an employee in an organizational set up. These factors provide the employees with a set of motivating elements, which help them in increasing their efficiency to perform better and enhance their productivity. Absence of these factors may result in employee dissatisfaction, which may lead to low productivity, absenteeism, high rate of error etc. Therefore, all the organizations should strive to provide their employees with cordial working environment.

Health and safety issues

Apart from the factors, which motivate the employees and provide them with harmonious working conditions, there are certain other factors, which are very important for creating a good environment for the employees. These factors are: – health and safety of the employees. The first and foremost requirement of any employee is that he/she should have been provided with a safe and healthy environment. It is the minimum requirement that every organization should fulfill in order to create a good work environment. It is very important for an organization that it should take necessary steps in order to ensure health and safety of their health.

Kerke (2010) state, creating a safer work environment is crucial to every business. This does not only imply that the organizations should avoid accidents but it also means that organization should discourage any kind of unhealthy and unsafe staff practices. Every organization should adopt workplace safety as its regular feature. In order to ensure safety at the workplace, an organization can conduct regular safety briefings. There are many organizations, who in order to provide their employees with safety, having daily safety meetings and many others have weekly safety meetings.

The author states that workplace should be inspected regularly, so that unsafe conditions and practices can be monitored. These inspections should be made at-least once or twice per week. The supervisors should be informed about what kind of situations can be harmful. This will make them geared up, in case there is any mis-happening. Any dangerous accident must be properly investigated, so that such accidents can be avoided in future. When any accidents take place then the employees should not be blamed or punished but should be taught about their mistakes. Putting blames will lower employee’s morale and will lead to further increase the risk of accidents. After any kind of dangerous accident the safety measures should be positively reinforced (Kerke, 2010).

All the employees must be given proper on the job training, regarding safety measures. They can be trained by their senior employees or professional trainers but their must be certain regular trainings, which can help the employees to handle all the equipments safely. Equipment handling should be made a regular part of the induction training program of the employees. In order to see that safety measures are properly implemented organizations should appoint safety officer.  Such safety officers will be helpful in dealing with all the health and safety related matter on a regular basis. Safety officer will play a dominant role in implementing the health and safety programs of an organization. Safety committees can also be created, which can assist the safety officer in performing his duties. Organizations should take proper care that the accidents must be prevented, as far as possible. All the healthy and safety measures must be properly documented. If there is lack of proper health and safety measures then many potential employees can refuse to take up jobs. Therefore, it is very necessary that organizations should take proper care to implement health and safety measures.