Water Cooler Culture In Offices
Now, more future thinking offices have begun to embrace a new kind of corporate thinking as a way to spark creative discussions and foster camaraderie and strong personal and professional relationships among employees. This is most helpful in a company that values employees’ creativity and thinking out of the box solutions.
Image Credit Copyright Roy Horner JrÂ
Here are some benefits of promoting this culture:
1. Creative, free flowing discussions: most of the time, you can’t just will creative ideas out of nothing. Sometimes, creative ideas are born out of deadlines; sometimes, they’re born during quiet, spontaneous moments when the mind is at rest and not pressured to think of something specific. When brainstorming in meetings, not all employees are adept enough to think of good ideas when they are seen by all their colleagues at one place. Sometimes that magical connection that sparks ideas happens outside, in a more relaxed environment.
These employees may opt to continue boardroom meetings during lunch or over coffee, or by having conversations near that proverbial water cooler. By taking away a stressful environment and providing a new atmosphere for casual conversations, these may actually spark the kind of new, innovative thinking important to any corporation.
2. Stronger personal connections between employees. The best way to improve employees’ happiness is to make sure they’re in contact with human beings they actually like. They should not just view work as simply work and the other people in it as simply office colleagues. They can be friends, and it won’t be that hard to do in a company that promotes innovative thinking and smart ideas. Encourage employees to use their lunch or coffee breaks to get to know each other better, to help each other in projects. This will not only boost employees’ happiness, they can also boost productivity and morale as well.
Having a water cooler culture in offices need not necessarily be a bad thing. Managers must know how to strike the right balance between promoting good conversations and relationships among workers while at the same time promoting productivity. Happy employees are productive employees, and any company that can manage that is bound for success and prosperity in the long run.