Five to Thrive Week 12

UMD’s Thriving Workplace Initiative is making the University of Maryland a great place to work by providing tools and support to foster engaged, inclusive and empowered faculty and staff across campus.

Each Monday, its Five to Thrive list offers five strategies crowdsourced from research, experts and our own UMD community to help your workplace thrive.

Want to build a Thriving Workplace? Here are this week’s tips:

• Before seeking suggestions or feedback, set the table. Go beyond the ambiguous “Let me know your thoughts” by giving the responder a specific task, such as “Can you proof this for grammar and spelling?” or “Can you make sure I hit all of the main points in the summary?” Give your reader any needed context, such as “This is for the president” or “This is a very rough draft.”
• Don’t be afraid to have the tough conversation. If you are being “kind” to an individual by trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, you may be being unkind to your team.
• Allow people flexibility in time management. If they are getting the work done, oftentimes the when and where aren’t as important.
• Endure together. Every workplace goes through moments of uncertainty, change and hardship. By standing on the front lines and bearing some of the brunt, you create the kind of unity that will weather any storm.
• Be approachable. Fostering communication and trust starts with an open door. While being busy is good, the appearance of always being busy can give off an unapproachable vibe and keep people away.

Want more tips? Visit the Thriving Workplace Resource Library here or sign up for Food for Thought Friday, which delivers strategies to your inbox each week. Send an email to thrivingworkplace@umd.edu with the subject listserv to subscribe.