No matter what industry you work in, or company you work for, your day to day efficiency can be dramatically affected by the environment you’re in. If you’re in a positive, happy, upbeat environment surrounded by colleagues you respect, it is likely you will be efficient and you will also have a better chance to succeed. If you’re in a negative, destructive environment, you will have much lower chances of success and ultimately happiness.
Most of us are products of our environment.
This is why my company’s latest honor is so important and why I, along with my executive team, take such pride in these things. I found out that our company was named to the Crain’s New York “Best Places to Work” list. The list, as well as our exact ranking, will be unveiled in December. Last year, in 2009, we also made the list and most recently we made a similar list of best places to work in marketing and media conducted by Advertising Age.
Why are these lists so important? Well, for one, they’re not rigged. A majority of the criteria for these lists come from confidential employee surveys never shown to an employer. Is it possible for employers to brainwash an entire company into grading them positively in the surveys? Probably not, unless you’re a very small business (we’re obviously not).
I’ve long believed that the environment you create in the workplace for your associates and coworkers is directly correlated to performance. It made me think about an entire issue in Winning the Web magazine devoted to corporate culture including a feature interview we did with Zappos, a company long believed to be a pioneer in corporate culture. It harkened me back to a blog post I did for iMedia Connection on the very same topic. Some employers or small businesses brush this theme to the side in favor of maniacal focus on growing bottom line profits; if they would only understand that there is evidence out there that the culture you create and bottom line profits are indeed at a minimum loosely tied, perhaps there would be more success stories in the world.
The environment you put employees in, as well as the environment you choose to put yourself in, is not just critical for one’s happiness, it is critical in efficiency and a helpful barometer of success. Give some thought about your own surroundings each day and perhaps a few of the links above will help shed some light on what some entities are getting right.