Perhaps, one of the most important elements of employee engagement is a healthy company environment. The work environment impacts your mood, drive, mental health, and performance. Maintaining a positive work environment can increase productivity, especially in remote work, produce better results and make work more enjoyable. But, how exactly can you make a healthy working environment where team members are productive, happy, and encouraged? 

Today, we are going to talk with Inna - Opinov8 Project Manager on Delivery Projects. Inna shared with us her tips on How to REALLY make the work environment healthier in a remote team, both physically and (more important) psychologically. These tips will also help to increase team productivity.

Inna, Project Manager of the Delivery team at Opinov8

• 8 years in management, almost 4 of them in Project management in IT
• Previously worked for the Olympics, European Games, one of the core players in the Eurovision Organisation Committee
• Visited and worked more than In 20 countries

One of the most important factors of delivery is a healthy atmosphere inside the team. When we say this, most people would automatically assume that we mean an environment that is good for our physical health. Actually, a healthy work environment is a whole lot more than that. A healthy workplace atmosphere is one where the team feels comfortable with each other, collaborates to increase productivity, motivation, and engagement.

Given that we spend one-third of our lives at work, the working environment can significantly impact our health and well-being, especially when working remotely. For me, it is super important to work side by side each day with a team that supports each other, loves what they do, and cares about common success. Each team member on my projects has a great and powerful personality, with awesome talents besides work. I love to spend each day in a friendly atmosphere where we help each other, challenge each other, teach each other and develop each other. 😀

Here are some tips from me to keep a healthy environment in a team:

1. Clarity about scope, goals, and delivery approach

I believe to have a good fit for the team you should always be clear as a manager with all aspects of delivery. Each team member should understand:

• What will wait for him/her on a project;
• Where they can develop themselves;
• What will be the hardest challenges in front of them.

2. Support

There is no situation we can’t handle as a team! We brainstorm each time when we need a solution to a tricky task and are happy to jump on any part of work to support anyone in a team. 💪

3. Never blaming

We all learn and part of it is our own mistakes. Our goal is to improve based on them, never blaming only support. 

4. Self-development

I love to see specialists grow, reach new goals for self-development, get promoted.  If there is any tool you can use for that as a manager, do it! Mentoring is highly appreciated inside our team. 🙌

5. Share common moments

If there is a chance to grab a coffee together, use it.  For example, we have a tradition to drink coffee in a park with a team on Sunday mornings. It got slow down in winter, but as spring comes — I hope to see more and more team members join. Especially nice to see each other after lockdown. 

6.  Nice jokes 🙂 

I hardly believe that it is possible to keep yourself up to speed and all challenges without a good sense of humor, and my team here is the best. Each time we support each other by a joke, that moment's challenges become much more fun. 😉

Keeping your employees happy and healthy should be a top priority at every workplace. It's important to maintain healthy relationships amongst team members so they can continue to be successful and productive together.

If you wanna join our super-friendly Delivery Projects team, don’t hesitate to check our open positions or send your CV to careers@opinov8.com