Your Ideal Work Environment

March 12, 2012 at 8:40 AM

First of all, this post is less of a blog, but more of an intro to a discussion I'd like to have.

I wasn't much of a fan of working at agencies, and I now own one. I'm hiring new employees, and want happy employees that are producing quality work, and are productive. I think a lot of employers would like to say they have it right, but I doubt anyone has it down.

At previous employers, I wasn't a fan of driving 40 minutes in each direction every day. Worrying about being late. Always was ready to leave. Hated standard practices (which were usually ill thought out and had some buggy concepts) being forced on me. But I loved the work for the most part. I loved getting involved and helping push the company to want higher standards. I also remember thinking that out of my 9 hour day (8+1 hour lunch), I was probably only productive 5 of those hours. I mean really truly productive.

So, if you were going to work at an agency, what would you want? What's your ideal environment? Whether it be an aesthetics thing (office appearance), company policies (dress code, hours, procedures), compensation (how much your paid, and based on what..).... Just go for it. ..... what's your dream job? Obviously, a realistic one.

Bonus Question: I once believed I was only productive 5 hours, tops, a day. If you feel the same about yourself, would you rather come into work 10am - 3pm? Would you be as productive, if not more, than an 8-5 situation? Take money out of the equation, to answer that without bias.

Comments are Closed

Posted by Norm on Mar 12th, 2012

To chime in on your idea of a perfect workplace, I would like to express my feelings of a great environment to work in. I think I speak for everyone when I say that I am guilty of not being "productive" all day when on the clock. I think the whole idea of a 9-5, or 8-5 in your case, limits us on our true potential while working. Rather than focusing on what needs to be done, we automatically choose to “run the clock out”. We are not rewarded by working hard to accomplish goals. Instead of scheduling employees to work 9-5, schedule them to finish projects. When the project has met its end, release the employees from work giving them incentive to work hard and produce results based on creativity and a good work ethic. I think the scheduled work day was a good idea in its time, however where we are now as a society, we should look outside the box.

A scheduled lunch hour is also a bad idea; I personally have a scheduled hour for my lunch time. On some days I utilize that entire hour, and others I cut it short. I feel like in the end it always equals out, so I am not cheating anyone out of my time. But my ideal lunch time wouldn’t be scheduled, it would just be a time set aside each day to recollect myself, gather my thoughts, and reflect on my goals for the rest of the day. How can you put a time limit on that? Obviously, you will have some that will abuse such a system, but I think most would be responsible enough to honor it.

In any case, these are just my thoughts of an ideal workplace. I think eventually this is what the workplace will adopt sometime down the line.

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