Top Ten Tips for... boosting employee morale
Are your employees showing signs that they’re struggling for motivation? Are they less energetic and excited? Are you witnessing an increase in rolled eyes and sighs in meetings? If so, your people might be in need of a morale boost. Low morale stems from a waning sense of job satisfaction and there can be many contributing factors for it, but no matter what’s causing it, as a leader you need to respond. It’s time to take action to create and foster an environment that is more rewarding and productive for your employees. Here are our top tips:
1. Recognise individuals
If your people are doing a great job, make sure that you tell them. Individually. It’s very simple but also very effective. Praise individual employees in staff meetings or take the time to hand write them a personal thank you note. Whatever the message, the key thing is that the individual knows that you notice and appreciate their hard work.
2. Ask employees what motivates them
Why not sit down with each individual for a chat about what they value and what success looks like for them? What they say will probably give you some good ideas for rewards that will impact them and boost their morale. And the process itself will make them feel more motivated, appreciated and engaged. You can boost their morale just by asking them these questions.
3. Encourage real lunch breaks
According to research, only one in five people take lunch breaks, and managers and team leaders are least likely to step away from their desks for a break. Some experts also believe that staying inside in the same location is really detrimental to creative thinking. Encourage managers to take a coffee break, go for a walk or leave the office at lunchtime every day. If they do it, everyone else will feel comfortable to do the same.
4. Give people responsibility
Your employees may be able to see inefficiencies in your organisation, but they may not feel empowered to point them out. This can lead to frustration and demotivation. Listening to them and finding out what gets in the way of them doing their best work and then involving them in the process to remove these barriers can have a huge impact. Your people will feel valued, encouraged and enabled to do even better.
5. Incorporate play
You can diffuse a tense, competitive environment by introducing humour and encouraging play. Playing games can help people to compromise, meet others’ needs and work together as a team. Add a table-tennis table to your break area; provide a selection of board and card games or encourage a small group to collaborate on an art project for the office.
6. Spend time away from the office volunteering
A good way to build employee morale and improve camaraderie is to spend some time out of the office volunteering for community service. Giving people a few hours a month to volunteer for a charitable initiative or organisation of their choice could be a great motivator. Volunteering as a team or department may be even better – it will make employees feel good, help them feel connected to their community and help them see each other in a different light.
7. Provide training
One of the main reasons employees leave a company is lack of personal development opportunities. Providing your people with effective professional training can be a great way to boost their morale. Consider partnering new starters with more experienced employees; bring in experts for training sessions and encourage and pay for people to attend relevant conferences and workshops.
8. Offer sabbaticals
This is a good way to increase quality of life and encourage employee retention. Based on their time of service, you can offer people the chance to take a break to pursue an outside interest, volunteer, travel or spend quality time with their family. If they’re feeling a bit burnt out, these extended breaks give people a viable option rather than leaving or transferring to another company.
9. Celebrate work anniversaries
Work anniversaries are relationship milestones between an employee and the company. It’s a great opportunity to recognise an individual’s contribution and will make them feel valued and special. Similarly, company birthdays are also a good opportunity to reconnect with your mission while celebrating accomplishments and generating good feelings.
10. Give small perks with big personal impact
Reward people with perks that may make a real difference to their lives. For example, offer employees the opportunity to work from home one day a week, give them a special gift to mark their first year of employment or offer them an extra day’s holiday to celebrate their birthday each year. Such generosity will be rewarded by real appreciation and loyalty.
Those are our suggestions. If you’d like to find out more about how cHRysos HR can help you get the best out of your employees, give us a call on 01302 802128 or email us info@chrysos.org.uk. We’d love to hear from you.
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cHRysos HR Solutions are a UK wide HR training and consultancy company offering CIPD accredited qualifications, Apprenticeships, Training and HR Services to SMEs. For more information about how cHRysos HR can help you or your teams successfully achieve further qualifications, contact us on info@chrysos.org.uk or call 03300 562443.