High employee morale boosts productivity, attendance, and creativity, among others. Here’s how to make sure this is communicated in the whole workplace.
According to Gallup, an American analytics and advisory company, a big chunk of the US workforce is not engaged. This means that a majority of US employees have low morale in the workplace. That being said, low morale tend to result in poor communication, frequent absences, elevated customer complaints, rising conflicts among team members, etc
Do you see this pattern in your company? It’s only when you recognize it can you really fix the problem. Employees with low morale are often underpaid, overworked, no room for growth, or under appreciated.
On the other hand, high morale employees show that they are happy to come to work, they are optimistic, satisfied, they’re motivated, positive, and many more. As a result, companies with high morale employees tend to have better production, reduced employee absenteeism, shows good collaboration, high self-esteem and satisfaction.
Do you want to boost employee morale in your organization? Make sure to follow these seven effective ways.
Transparency is key
Leaders need to be transparent to boost their staff’s morale. This means that it’s essential to share work-related problems to your employees, not hide them. People respect honesty and collaboration tend to fix a lot of issues. With that being said, make sure to give them an update with new protocols, customer feedback, etc.
Communicate regularly
Communication is essential to ensure high morale in your employees. Just like when you have a new product, you need to share positive company announcements to your employees. You have to remember that your employees are human beings too. That means you need to treat them right.
However, communication is not limited to task-related topics. In fact, you can ask them some things that they care about. Here are some of the best examples on what to ask your employees:
- Ask them how they feel about their job, manager, equipment they use, co-workers, etc.
- You can ask them about their challenges and how you can help them.
- How happy are they with their work?
You need to foster an open communication with your employees on a regular basis. You can start with the issues they are facing at the moment. Likewise, you can also talk about their achievements. This is a proven employee morale booster.
Create a positive company culture
Positive work culture often leads to higher productivity which every boss wants. As a leader, we know you have a lot on your plate. However, you don’t have to do everything on your own. That’s because there are some apps that can help you do it.
Employee apps are powerful and flexible tools to communicate and engage with your team. Moreover, employee apps can help you with tasks like:
● Employee acknowledgement and recognition
It’s important to acknowledge and recognize everyone in your team and that includes new hires. Recognition goes a long way. In fact you can also do this with company-wide or individual milestones and anniversaries.
In addition, you can also be creative. Some of the best ways to recognize someone are: create employee spotlight and allow them to nominate their peers for awards. Likewise, recognition often leads to higher productivity, increased engagement, foster loyalty, and higher customer satisfaction.
● Celebrate their success
Make sure to share success with your employees. This includes when they bring in new customers, transferring to a new location, when they reach their goal or KPI set. Moreover, you can also celebrate customer success through letters, pictures, videos, etc.
● Put them front and center
Make sure to place your employees on a pedestal. The best way to do this is to make decisions based on organizational surveys not just your own. Furthermore, you can encourage them to launch a suggestion box for gathering feedback and insights or introduce an open-door policy. This will lead your employees to feel comfortable with HR or the senior management.
Encourage employee feedback
This is another proven method to boost employee morale. Showing your staff that you’re listening to them will make them feel important and valued. As a result, you will have highly motivated employees. However, gathering feedback isn’t an end unto itself. You need to act on them.
Even if you can’t implement all of them, make sure to thank your employees for taking the time to send their thoughts and suggestions.
Offer them room for growth
Giving them a sense of purpose will foster your employees to work on a goal to look forward and strive for. Truth is, this doesn’t have to be a job promotion. Instead, you can send them to participate in a conference, attend a seminar, or enrol to a course that will help them develop their skills as a professional.
By providing them with a sense of growth, it will result in a great deal of inspiration and motivation with your employees.
Organize team building activities
Team building activities is a great morale booster for employees. Team building often leads to better collaboration and increased motivation in the workplace. That’s because these activities help participants know themselves better as well as their coworkers.
In fact, team building develops open communication, leads to higher creativity or out-of-the-box mindsets, among others. Likewise, team building is not just fun but it’s highly educational as well.
Offer incentives
Incentives are not a long-term solution but it’s a good way to boost morale among employees. But incentives don’t always mean money. In fact, you can be creative. Here are some good examples:
- You can bring in puppies from your local shelter for adoption if the recipient loves dogs.
- You can also let them work from home if they want to.
The key is to know your employees on a personal level. Make sure to have a better understanding of what they value and love. Hobbies are a great incentive.
