Does your team morale need a boost?
As a business owner, you depend on your employees to operate and manage your business every day. The relationship between you and your employees is based on trust. You trust your employees to get the job done, and they trust that you’ll pay them a fair wage, provide a good working environment and job security.
If something is missing from either side of this equation, there can be a negative impact on your employees and your revenue.
Employees with low morale are disengaged from their work, costing organizations close to half a trillion dollars every year.
Would you like to improve the morale at your workplace? Read these tips to find out how.
Why is Morale Important at Work?
For many business owners, employee morale is just another thing to worry about that’s low on the list of priorities. Many have not made the connection between employee morale and productivity and revenue.
For them, employees go to the office, do their best work, go home, and get a paycheck in return for their work.
There’s so much more to it than that.
What is employee morale? For this article, morale is simply a state of mind. It’s how people (your employees) feel about and perceive their work, the management, other team members, and the work environment.
It’s important to understand because morale has a trickle-down effect on your business. If an employee feels negative about anything related to their work, they’re simply not motivated to do a good job.
They might love the actual work, but if they are miserable in the work environment or can’t stand their manager, then they’re not going to give 100%.
Low employee morale results in more sick days to avoid work, lower productivity, lower engagement, and lower loyalty.
What Can Influence Employee Morale?
There are a ton of factors that influence employee morale, and they’re lurking both inside and outside of your company.
Externally, economic conditions could threaten revenue, which can lead to job security issues. That could also happen if your company lost its biggest client.
Internally, things like a massive workload, organization restructuring, and poor management can lead to poor employee morale.
Even a poor working environment can impact morale over time. Beat up desks and chairs, or drab colors could give employees the feeling that there’s a lack of caring about the business. You might be trying to save money, but you’re giving employees the wrong message.
10 Tips to Increase Team Morale in the Workplace
Fortunately, there are plenty of creative ways to increase team morale at work. These tips outlined here don’t have to cost much and are easy to implement. They may challenge the way you normally run things, but it’s well worth it.
1. Empower Your Employees
Your employees need to feel valued and that you can trust them to do good work. Empower them to make decisions on their own. For example, you might authorize customer service reps to refund customers up to $500. That shows that you trust them to make the right decisions and they don’t have to rely on management to do their job.
2. Hire the Right Employees
In order to foster employee morale, you have to hire the right employees from the start. Hire people whose values align with the mission and vision of the organization.
The more aligned a person is with your company, the more likely they will stay at the company in the long term.
3. Remember to Say Thank You
Money does not motivate your employees. They’re motivated by how much they feel valued in the organization. The simplest thing you can do as a manager to show they’re valued is to say thank you.
At least once a week, visit with employees and say “Thank you for your hard work. It’s not going unnoticed, and it’s appreciated.”
4. Be a Leader, Not a Manager
There’s a difference between leadership and management. Managers focus on the processes and operations of the company.
Leaders act from within to inspire and motivate their employees. They encourage employees to be better, not threaten them with their jobs when they’re not doing well.
5. Be Public in Your Appreciation
When you show appreciation to your employees, public recognition is important, too. Have programs in place that give your employees public recognition along with those moments when you take the time to thank them for their work.
6. Encourage Growth
Your employees don’t want to feel stuck in their job. They want to know that there’s upward advancement within the company. They’re driven to be successful, so let them know that there are opportunities to grow within the organization.
7. Support a Healthy & Balanced Lifestyle
Balance has become increasingly important to your employees. Health care costs are soaring because employees aren’t taking care of themselves due to stresses at work.
You can do a couple of things to improve that situation. You can get office plants, which would brighten up the office environment. You can allow flexible schedules for employees.
You can help employees make better food choices at work by getting a Healthy You Vending machine at the office.
8. Live Your Company’s Values
If you worked for a health brand that valued health but saw your leadership team chainsmoking all the time, how would you feel about that company?
That’s why you want to live your company’s values. Remember, you’re setting the example for the rest of your team.
9. Make Employee Activities Authentic
Employees dread corny icebreaker activities because they know how inauthentic they are. Do something fun like BBQs and yard games like Can Jam to break the ice.
10. Trust Your Employees to Do More
Your employees want to be trusted to do their jobs. If you micromanage them, they will hate their jobs.
Improving Morale Can Improve Revenue
The bottom line for businesses is that employee morale has an impact on the bottom line. More than that, it can impact your customers.
If your employees are unhappy, how will they interact with your customers?
The good news about team morale is that you can take simple steps to improve morale that won’t increase your expenses.
Employee morale starts at the top. The more you show that you genuinely care about your employees, the more they’ll take care of business.
For more tips on running a business, check out this article to improve customer service.