Happy New Year! It’s finally 2022, and we’ve all made our way back to work after enjoying the holidays. With a new year comes new opportunities for us to set goals for ourselves. A new year tradition for many people is to make new year’s resolutions. Whether it’s losing weight or (finally) starting to read more for pleasure, people often make new year’s resolutions in the hopes that they’ll be better versions of themselves if they accomplish them. So who says you can’t do the same thing as a company?

You can set office resolutions that not only help make your workplace an environment workers don’t want to leave, but you can set resolutions that align well with your workers’ personal goals as well. Here are Bryq’s Top 5 New Year’s Office Resolutions for 2022!

Bryq's Top 5 Office Resolutions for 2022

1. Office Clean-Out/Reshuffle

A new year signifies a fresh start. What better way to do that than an office clean-up? Start the new year with a clean slate by cleaning up your office space. Out with the old, in with the new. Get rid of any clutter and recycle everything you can to keep in line with your environmental and sustainability policies.

It’s also a great idea to move around the furniture in new ways to help liven up the office. In fact, rearranging furniture has been proven to increase dopamine levels, boost creativity levels, and increase productivity! Throwing some new artwork or even a fresh coat of paint onto the walls will also have similar effects on employees. Let’s enter 2022 in style!

2. Emphasize Employee Well-Being

When a near year comes, we often see gyms jam packed full of people wanting to lose weight and get healthier. When people make resolutions, improving their physical and mental health are often at the top of their resolution lists. As an employer, wouldn’t it be great to make resolutions that help your employees accomplish their own goals?

The first thing you want to do is prevent employee burnout from happening. Having things like pulse checks and 1-on-1 meetings to see how your employees are doing helps. Make sure that their workloads are reasonable, and allow for flexibility. Flexibility might look like extending a deadline or allowing them to work from home if it makes it easier for them to do their job.

Additionally, your employees are first and foremost human beings, and it’s important that they stay safe and healthy. The COVID pandemic isn’t going away, and it’s necessary to be mindful of this. Encourage mask-wearing, social distancing, and working remotely either completely or in a hybrid model in order to mitigate the risk of your employees falling ill.

3. Focus on Employee Retention

One of the biggest challenges companies are facing going into 2022 is the Great Resignation. Workers have been leaving their jobs at a steady, alarming rate since April 2021. When you hear some of the shocking stories about workplace abuse happening, it’s no surprise to see over 4 million workers leaving their jobs a month. Focusing on employee retention is a smart resolution to have going into the new year.

The best part? It’s truly attainable. As mentioned above, taking COVID seriously and allowing employees the opportunities to work from home either part-time or completely will really help keep employees where they are. Additionally, offering flexibility and opportunities for growth are truly valued by employees. In fact, these are the two biggest factors pertaining to employee retention levels based on research by Bryq.

Finally, discovering the root problems causing your employees to leave might be the best way to stick to this resolution. You might know why workers, in general, are leaving their companies, but that might not be the reason they are leaving yours. Figure out what your retention rate is and try to gather as much data as you can through surveys and pulse checks to see where your company can make improvements going into 2022.

4. Update Your Company Policies

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) continues to be a massive challenge for companies to overcome going into the new year. Discovering how your company can put a clear focus on improving your DEI efforts is a great office resolution to have. The newest generation of workers highly value diversity. In fact, 77% of Gen-Z workers take diversity into account before accepting an employment offer.

If you’re looking to create a safe, inclusive environment that workers want to be a part of, ensuring that your company's policies are up-to-date and reflect the times we are living in is crucial. If you don’t have one already, creating an inclusion policy that is all-encompassing and thought through is a great way to start the new year. A new year should bring new policy changes and more inclusion. Additionally, now is the perfect time to start an environmental or sustainability policy in your office. It’s our responsibility to keep our planet safe and healthy too!

5. Build Upon Your Company Culture

Company culture continues to be a make-or-break part of an organization going into 2022. It’s often one of the deciding factors regarding whether or not an employee accepts a job offer. It poses the question: do most of us even know what culture is?

Culture can be defined as the shared beliefs and values between a company and its employees. Despite what many think, culture isn’t about free company swag or foosball tables in the office. Clearly define your culture if you haven’t already done so. Not only should you hire employees that will align with your culture, but you should be practicing “culture add” by hiring employees who will add what is missing from your culture. By prioritizing this, you are setting your company up for success for years to come!

Set Office Resolutions with Success in Mind!

When it comes to setting New Year’s resolutions for your company, they need to mirror the resolutions we’d make for ourselves.

They should be:

• Achievable

• Attainable 

• Time-Sensitive

Make sure that your resolutions are defined, realistic, and can be realistically accomplished in a reasonable amount of time - 365 days in this case! Hold yourself accountable by making these goals public to employees. If anybody is going to make sure these resolutions are accomplished, it’s them!

The Team at Bryq wishes everybody a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2022! We cannot wait to work alongside you to help make some of these resolutions a reality. Now let’s get to work!