Inspiration from Rasulullah SAW about Healthy, Positive Workplace Culture and Environment

You believe that a healthy, positive workplace culture and environment is very important for your business and to make it sustainable. You want to find a “core values” word/concept for your business, to represent warmth/casual/friendly/open to balance the “professional (commitment)” value.

You don’t want professional to mean “constantly under pressure / employee burnout”.

I think you will agree that we will strive to be both professional, but also comfortable, enjoy, in balance.. which I’d say give the feeling of more accomplishment.

I recently read this hadits from Prophet Muhammad SAW that best sums up what I mean/feel about this value:

Dari Abu Juhaifah Wahab bin Abdullah ra. ia berkata: Nabi saw. mempersaudarakan Salman dan Abu Darda’. Tatkala Salman berkunjung ke rumah Abu Darda’, ia mendapatkan Ummu Darda’ (istri Abu Darda’) sedang mengenakan pakaian kerja, lantas Salman bertanya: “Mengapa engkau tidak berhias?” Ummu Darda’ menjawab: “Abu Darda’ sudah tidak lagi memperhatikan kepentingan duniawi.”Kemudian Abu Darda’ datang dan dihidangkanlah makanan, berkata kepada Salman: “Silakan makan, saya sedang berpuasa.” Salman menjawab: “Saya tidak akan makan sebelum engkau makan.” Maka Abu Darda’pun makan. Di malam harinya Abu Darda’ bangun untuk mengerjakan shalat malam, namun Salman berkata kepadanya: “Tidurlah.” Kemudian di akhir malam, Salman berkata: “Bangunlah. Kita shalat bersama-sama.” Dan Salman berkata pula kepadanya: “Sesungguhnya bagi Rabb-mu ada hak, bagi dirimu ada hak, dan bagi keluargamu juga ada hak, maka penuhilah semuanya.” Kemudian Nabi saw. datang dan Salman menceritakan apa yang baru saja terjadi, maka beliau memutuskan: “Salman benar.” (HR Bukhari)

Prophet Muhammad SAW

Of course, that hadits talks about religion.

But it’s the similar concept that you want to capture about this value:

  • It doesn’t mean that we’re too lax that our Rocks and To-dos (EOS leadership principles) are not done
  • it also doesn’t mean that we’re too strict that team members feel demotivated and work is just a routine thing that work becomes simply a way to get money

I remember this one popular YouTuber who ever worked on Facebook with a $100K+ salary and when he got out, he talked negative things about Facebook and what things he didn’t like, the toxic environment, etc. so it means that salary is no substitute for good working ecosystem.

So we should strive to ensure generally healthy environment for all our team members. I hope these thoughts will be useful to you.