Simple Tips for Higher Morale in Your Company
Employee morale and your company culture tend to go hand in hand, so don’t you think you should strive for higher morale? Of course, you can’t miraculously improve morale with a random pizza party. You need to consider the ways that you and the leaders in your company are communicating with the other employees. It’s not just about trying to make the team happy for a few hours or a day. It’s about adopting a culture that encourages engagement, honesty, and feedback.
Use These Tips for Higher Morale
Below, we’ll discuss some of the best ways you can try to boost morale at your workplace. It’s relatively easy to do and it can make a big difference in how your employees feel.
Make One-on-One Meetings a Normal Part of the Job
Communicating with your employees is one of the best ways to ensure higher morale, but it is also one of the areas where a lot of companies are failing. They don’t have any means of providing regular one-on-one meetings with the staff. A lot of issues could be cleared up in those meetings, and it’s a good idea to attempt to hold them weekly if possible.
When you provide these meetings, the employees see that you care about their development and well-being. You want them to thrive, so you keep up with the teams. Managers at all levels should strive to do this. It might feel impossible to keep up with everything, but when you have the right tools and strategies in place, it is possible.
Encourage Two-Way Feedback
One of the other areas where a lot of companies tend to be lacking is receiving feedback. Although they might be willing to give feedback, they aren’t always willing to listen to what their employees have to say. However, a lot of times, your workers will provide you with insight into issues that you may not have known existed. They might even provide you with solutions to different sorts of problems or improve processes.
You should encourage your team to be free with their feedback when it is constructive and presented respectfully, just as you do with their feedback. When your employees see that you are listening to the feedback and taking action, they will feel more motivated and engaged. They see you care about their progress and the company. This will lead to higher morale.
Train Managers and Make Them Coaches
Managers may not be the direct cause of low morale, but when they don’t have proper training, they can certainly be part of the problem. If you find that the managers could be part of the problem, consider providing them with more training specifically for the role of manager. Even though they might have insight into how the company runs and everything the team does, if they aren’t communicative, emotionally intelligent, and trained in leadership, morale could suffer.
Additionally, consider providing them with training to act as workplace coaches. This can help them when they are providing feedback to the team members.
Transparency Is Good
You should always strive to be as transparent as possible. There may be some areas where transparency isn’t entirely possible, and that’s normal. However, you shouldn’t try to hide problems or not have conversations, as this is going to keep driving morale lower. Try to be transparent, or at least let the team know why you can’t be at the moment.
Provide Development Options
Your employees are often looking for ways to improve their skills, so they can advance in the company. You want to make sure you are providing opportunities for their development and growth. When there are leadership positions open, try to hire from within rather than bring in someone from the outside to take over the role.
Remove Problem Employees
This is something that doesn’t get talked about a lot, but it is a serious problem. A lot of times, there will be one or two employees at work that are making things miserable for others. They could be causing all manner of different problems in the workplace. For example, some might be shirking their work and letting others pick up the slack. Others could be actual bullies.
When you find these types of employees, you need to make sure they change their behavior, or you need to let them go because of the things they are doing or not doing. This will remove a lot of stress in the workplace.
Show Your Appreciation
A paycheck is not enough to show your employees that you care about them. The paycheck is what they get in exchange for the work they do. You aren’t buying their loyalty; you are buying their labor. If you want to boost morale, you will want to find other ways that you can show your appreciation. This might include rewards for outstanding work, for example. It might also be a team or organization-wide reward or perk.
The types of benefits that can be offered will vary. It might be as simple as gift cards, a discounted gym membership, holiday parties, etc. The point is to regularly show your appreciation to those who are working for you. If you don’t, they are going to leave for a company that does.
Make the Workplace Fun
The place where you work shouldn’t be a drag, even though the work itself might not be what most would consider fun. You can still try to make the workplace a fun and pleasant place to be for people. Let people know that it’s okay to relax and laugh. This can often help them to better connect with the team, too, which can end up boosting morale further.
Why Is Positive Morale Important?
Why should you focus on things like positive employee morale? For starters, it will help to improve your company’s productivity and efficiency. There’s a good chance it will also allow your employees to produce higher quality work.
As mentioned, having good company morale ties in closely with a good company culture and work environment. When you have a healthy work environment, it tends to mean you can attract and retain better talent. When your employees are happy, it means reduced turnover.
We all know just what a pain and an expense turnover can be. You need to find a new employee, hire them, bring them in and onboard them, and get them trained. It’s a far better option to just keep the good employees you have, so be sure to work on boosting your morale. Higher morale will also reduce workplace absences and the amount of stress people feel in the workplace.
What Are Some of the Main Causes of Low Morale in the Workplace?
You now know why you need to ensure positive morale at work and some of the best ways to do so. However, you will also want to have a good understanding of some of the things that are likely to cause the biggest problems when it comes to morale. You should look at the following issues and see whether they apply to your company or not. If they do, you can expect morale to be low. You will want to change that.
No Growth Opportunities
Your employees do not want to commit to a job where they don’t have any chance to grow, get promotions, and achieve their career goals. If you aren’t providing any growth opportunities, you will find that your best employees are going to leave sooner or later. They want to find a place that will work well for their career goals, which means you are going to continue to see a lot of turnover.
Lack of Clarity
One of the other issues that companies might have is a lack of clarity. If your employees do not have any idea what it is you expect of them, if they don’t know how to properly complete their task or why they are performing a task, they aren’t going to be motivated. They will put in only as much effort as your managers who are supposed to be providing that added clarity.
No Communication
Along with a lack of clarity, companies with low morale tend to have poor or no communication. In these workplaces, it is difficult to get in touch with those in the company who can provide answers to questions the employees might have.
Leadership Issues
Of course, there could also be potential issues with the leadership at the company. In some cases, the company might seem to go through continual shakeups in the leadership. When leaders change or when company culture shifts, even slightly, it often means the staff morale changes. The confusion of constant changes, or of poor leadership, can cause low company morale.
If you find that your company has problems in one or more of these areas, or if there are other morale issues, you will want to make some changes. Using the tips above can help.