Your work environment includes all sorts of formal characteristics such as company size, geographical location and security level of contracts, but also informal features that describe how things are typically made and done at the workplace.
Examples could include workload, manager´s informal attitude to overtime, the usual way of solving problems or whether the company is generally family friendly. It is mainly about what is seen as desirable and important, and, on the contrary, what is undesirable. In other words, the work environment has a lot to do with both formal and informal conditions, plus the company culture and values.
What stimulates one person’s satisfaction, high performance and retention in the company, can be extremely exhausting and inhibiting for someone else. That means that there is nothing like an optimal work environment that works for everyone. It is a matter of individual preference, and those are related to one´s values, long-term objectives and personality.
Your working life brings different occasions to optimize your work environment according your own preferences. Sometimes a small change while staying in the same job might be enough, if you know what to negotiate for. On other occasions, you might be changing the job or even your career. You don’t want to miss such a great opportunity to choose your optimal work environment, so you need to be aware of what works for you and what doesn’t.
What is optimal for you?
The following set of questions can help you describe your optimal work environment.
In the second round, you can mark those options that describe your current position or the one you have been considering – to see how that matches your preferences.
1. In each row, choose your preferred option. If it is “something in between”, try to specify it as much as possible (e.g. a company with 40-60 employees):
If I could, I would like to work...
I generally prefer...
If I could choose what should be considered most important at my workplace, it would be:
2. Choose any number of the following options:
I consider it important that my workplace be:
How close or far is that from your current work environment? What could you do to optimize the work environment, while staying in the same job or at the same workplace?
If you are considering a new job or even a career change, where could you find or develop such a combination of working conditions? For example, in which sector (public, non-profit, or commercial) is it most likely? As employed (full-time, part-time), self-employed (alternatively on freelance) or in entrepreneurship?
Imagine how your working life would change if you increased the correlation, or if you actively built a work environment like the one you have just described.
That is an example of the results that coaching can help you achieve: together with a professional, you can explore the combination of your preferences and find ways to develop such an environment in your real-life circumstances.