Research has shown that creating a happier, healthier workplace for employees can lead to a more productive and cohesive company. But how can business leaders create that environment?

The physical working space certainly has a part to play, and we’ve seen the importance that one global employer places on work space design through the design competition we’ve run recently with Hiscox.

The competition saw design and psychology students pitch products designed to help create a better working environment in the new Hiscox office building in the city.

We’ve also seen a shift in the rigidity of working environments and patterns in recent years. In many organisations, employees are no longer restricted to working from one place – we hot-desk, we work from home or from the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot.

The hours we work are becoming more flexible, too, to fit around commutes and family commitments; and emotional reward is a higher priority for employees.

This links to something I’ve been hearing a lot about this month: the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership roles.

Building strong emotional relationships in the workplace can help create more cohesive, engaged and motivated teams, and business leaders – more than ever – need to be able to understand what drives their team and therefore what will ultimately drive their business.

Many managers don’t know what their employees want. That’s usually because they don’t ask.

And they don’t ask because they are worried that employees might ask for something the company can’t give them, or that they might express concern about the running of the business.

Having an open dialogue with employees, being able to show genuine appreciation and establishing authentic relationships can make for smoother working relationships. It can also make tough conversations and challenging ‘unhelpful’ behaviour less confrontational.

After all, it’s human nature to respond positively to someone who shows empathy with your situation.

For those leaders who aren’t natural graduates of the emotional school of leadership, all is not lost. Emotional intelligence skills can be learned; it’s just a case of finding the right platform to learn.

Applying emotional intelligence as a leader and combining it with the creation of working environments that have a positive impact on performance and attitudes at work; as well as implementing working patterns that meet the needs of your business and your team could just be the answer to a happier, healthier workplace, better employee engagement and a more productive and cohesive business.