Does the environment we work in affect our health in any way? The answer is yes. The workplace environment affects both our mental and physical health. The environment we work in day in and day out also has a huge impact on our happiness, performance, and productivity. Our workplace is the place we spend most of our time, as such this place has a significant influence on our overall health. Let’s see in what ways the business environment affects our overall health.
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Workplace organization
How organized is your workplace? Did you know that working in a cluttered and disorganized work setting increases our anxiety and stress levels? Our brains can’t focus and find clutter distracting. That means that when clutter is all around you in your workplace, you can’t think clearly and concentrate. This in turn negatively affects productivity and performance at work.
Dirty, messy, and disorganized places are also great contributors to stress and anxiety. People surrounded by clutter and lack of organization tend to procrastinate more.
The lack of proper organization, mess, and clutter also negatively impact our physical health. Office clutter can deplete energy, cause delayed decision-making, can even affect your eating and sleeping habits. Stress and anxiety can lead to overeating and lack of sleep.
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Physical workplace atmosphere
Physical conditions that you work in can also significantly affect your overall health. Room temperature, humidity, light, noise, layout, and decoration – all these factors can influence your mind – comfort, concentration, and even relationships in the office.
How comfortable are you in your office? Do you have a comfortable, ergonomic chair and desk? What’s the size of your office? The quality of the furniture in your office can contribute to various physical health issues such as sore muscles, chronic pain, repetitive strain injury, eye strain, headaches, and chronic fatigue.
All of these issues lead to reduced quality of life and thus, reduced work capacity, productivity, and motivation.
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Lack of team cohesion
Another important factor for a healthy workplace environment includes good coworker interactions. The lack of cohesion between employees can lead to conflicts, lack of trust, problems, misunderstandings, and even aggression. All of these can negatively affect not only the workplace environment but the mental and emotional health of employees.
A healthy workplace is a place where there is understanding and cohesion among the employees. When everyone works as a team and has a strong sense of belonging to that team, there will never be unsolvable problems or conflicts.
Lack of communication, transparency, and trust can all lead to poor work relationships among coworkers. That’s why leaders and managers need to encourage open communication and find ways to facilitate communication as well. Check out this website, to find out more about how you can increase workplace communication and, in that way, employee retention and productivity.
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Poor leadership
Poor management and lack of proper communication between employees and management can also negatively affect the office environment. Unfortunately, poor leadership is not uncommon in a lot of workplace settings.
Leaders who create an intimidating work environment, who don’t listen to employee concerns and opinions, who encourage passive-aggressive communication, and never own up to their mistakes are often the cause of an unhealthy workplace environment. And working in such an environment is far from good or healthy.
Employees are always stressed, and anxious, there is no trust or open communication, and constant pressure, all of these contribute to poor emotional, mental and physical health.
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Lack of physical and psychological security
No one can work in an environment where they don’t feel safe. The workplace shouldn’t be perceived as a risk to both physical and mental well-being.
In addition to usual occupational risk prevention, employees should work in a clean, safe, and healthy place. In case of an outbreak of any disease, the workplace should have all the necessary preventative measures in place.
Similarly, the workplace should be a judgment-free, tolerant, and understanding place. There’s no space for sexist or xenophobic attitudes. Employers should do everything to prevent employee anxiety, stress, and burnout syndrome at the workplace.
As you can see, the environment we work in can affect our overall health. That’s why it’s incredibly important that everyone, both employers and employees, work on creating a positive, healthy and safe environment.
