How to Improve Maturity in the Workplace
To maintain maximum productivity and profit in your business, it's imperative that your staff demonstrate a certain level of maturity in the workplace. Though casual conversation, misunderstandings and occasional outbursts are inevitable in most any work environment, frequent episodes and unprofessional behavior can become a costly distraction. Fortunately, a few simple practices can help improve maturity in the workplace and keep your business running smoothly.
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Instructions
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Outline a detailed company policy regarding acceptable workplace behavior. The first order of business in workplace maturity is eliminating immature and juvenile behavior. Compose a clearly detailed company policy regarding the rules and consequences of inappropriate behavior. This might include jokes, pranks, profanity, sexual harassment, tantrums, pouting and participating in cliques. Establish some sort of points or write-up system to enforce the policy and have each employee sign it to ensure they understand the rules.
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Address the concepts of emotional intelligence with your staff. To improve the maturity of your staff, motivate them to want to mature as individuals. Request that they evaluate their own maturity by asking themselves a few questions, such as: "Do I understand my own strengths and weaknesses?"; "Am I able to see things from another person's point of view?"; "Can I be depended on to fulfill my responsibilities?"; and "Am I the type of person others want on the team?" Getting them thinking about their own levels of emotional intelligence encourages the desire for positive change.
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Encourage teamwork, tolerance and communication among staff members. One aspect of developing workplace maturity is improving the way employees interact with each other. Encourage staff members to communicate with one another to avoid errors and misunderstandings and to demonstrate patience and tolerance when such instances occur. Assign employees to group projects to encourage teamwork and allow an opportunity to practice their interpersonal skills.
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Support learning and enrichment programs and promote community acknowledgment. A significant component in the maturity process is education. Offering training courses, programs and seminars not only improves your staff capability, it also promotes intellectual maturity. Acknowledgment of employee successes and achievements are also motivational incentives to mature in a business environment. If you provide educational opportunities to your staff and celebrate their achievements, you'll likely experience favorable results.
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Organize mandatory maturity training programs. If you're having difficulty reforming your staff members on your own, you can always turn to professional development services to help improve workplace maturity. Many of these services offer on-site training programs led by certified instructors. You might also consider online seminars and training packages that can be downloaded online for use at company meetings or viewed by employees over the Internet at home.
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Tips & Warnings
The American Management Association offers seven interpersonal skills courses that can be completed on-site or online.
Trajectorie provides workplace maturity solutions that include working with emotional intelligence, effective teamwork and business etiquette.
References
Resources
- Career Success For Newbies: Work Behaviors That Work, and Gets You the Respect You Deserve
- M2 Consulting: The Importance of Professional Maturity
- Rush Rogers Recruiting: Maturity in the Workplace - Making Maturity Work For You
- Six Sigma Online: Professionalism at Work - Emotional Maturity and Success in the Workplace
- National Staff Development and Training Association: Professional Development Institute
- Photo Credit Ciaran Griffin/Lifesize/Getty Images
