Simple Ways To Boost Employee Morale
Your employees are the heart of your business. Without their work, you can’t succeed. It’s important to make them valued, in order to keep company morale high. With low morale, people are less productive, less engaged, and more likely to look for another job, driving your staff retention levels down. One of the best things you can do for your business is to pay attention to employee morale and work to improve it. Here are some simple ways to do that.
Offer Perks
A great way to improve the way your team thinks about your company is to offer them perks for working with you. A benefits package is an attractive option, and a good one can encourage people to stay.
Offer something useful, like salary exchange schemes for electronics, childcare vouchers, or a healthcare plan. Speak to a health insurance consultant to find the best health plans to offer your team.
You could also offer perks as rewards for the end of tough projects, like a staff party, after-work beers, or extra days off.
Communicate
You can’t keep your team happy if you aren’t talking to them. One of the simplest ways to improve morale is to communicate. Make sure you’re checking in with your team all the time. Ask them how they’re feeling, and what the energy is like on their team. Ask them what challenges they’re facing and how you can help. This could be done through regular one-to-ones, or in a more informal way. This allows you to keep close track of what’s working and what isn’t and means you can identify and combat any problems as they arise before they escalate.
It’s also essential to communicate with them about changes in the business, or any new initiatives that are coming in. Do this well in advance, so people feel they are being kept in the loop, and don’t feel that you’re springing things on them without any warning.
Remember that your employees are people and should be treated as such. Make them feel that their opinions matter and are listened to, and involve them in conversations that affect them.
Get Feedback
If your business is struggling in sales or a market share, then don’t struggle on alone trying to come up with a solution. Instead, remember that you hired your team for their expertise, and get their feedback. They’re the ones on the frontlines and may have innovative ideas for you.
By taking this route you may discover a great, new way to improve things. As an added bonus, when you ask for feedback and let them know that their input is valuable, staff are more likely to over more helpful ideas in the future.
Make Firm Business Decisions
As the owner of a business, you can’t be the one who sits on the fence. You have to be decisive. Whatever issues arise, you must take the time to educate yourself, weigh up the pros and cons, and then make your decision. When you’ve made a decision, stand by it. If something then goes wrong, be honest, learn from the mistake, and move on.
Your employees need to know that they can trust their leaders to guide them in the right direction. It’s far more productive to have a post-mortem on why something didn’t work out than to fail to do anything in the first place.
Praise Employees On Social Media
Social media is of course a great tool for marketing your business, but it can also be a tool used to improve employee morale. If a team member goes the extra mile to improve a customer’s experience or make a client happy, recognize that person on Facebook or Twitter.
Your employees will feel that their efforts are being noticed and acknowledged, and will feel proud of their accomplishments. Your customers also get to see a human side to your business and see that your company culture is supportive.
Have Fun
Even though you’re the boss, it’s important to loosen up a little some of the time. Remember to have fun in the office sometimes. Make the effort to get to know your team on a personal level, not just on a professional one. Ask about their weekends, learn the names of their kids, or remember the things they’re interested in, whether they love playing golf or going to the theatre.
This helps you to build a genuine relationship with your team. They see you as a human being, and you see them as more than just employees. This can help to improve relations in the team, as people will feel more comfortable coming to you with a problem, and communication will be more effective.
Send Fewer Emails
Email is one of the biggest drains on employee productivity, but it also has an impact on employee well-being. Email increases stress, and requires a high level of reactivity. Instead of using email for everything, try to communicate in person more often, and make use of tools like Slack, Trello, or Asana instead. Software like this allows you to stay in touch with the stress or time-drain of constant emails.
Let Go Of Negative Team Members
Everyone’s worked with someone who was intimidating, condescending, or demeaning. This people are very bad for morale, as they make everyone around them feel bad.
If you have an employee who is rude, belittles people, only gives negative feedback, lies, or acts in a racist, sexist, or homophobic manner, then they have to go. Someone who blows up in meetings, won’t accept blame, gossips, spreads rumors or uses fears as a motivator has no place in your business.
Weeding out this kind of behavior, especially from your leadership team, will go a long way to improving morale in your company.
Encourage Proper Lunch Breaks
In the modern workplace, many people don’t take proper lunch breaks. Office workers are the least likely to take a break from the desks for a break. Staying inside, at the same desk is damaging for lots of reasons. Sitting at a desk all day causes posture problems that can lead to a bad back. Staring at a screen all day can cause eye strain. It’s also tiring and can be detrimental to creative thinking.
Make sure your managers lead by example and take a proper lunch break. Encourage others to leave the office, or at least their desks, for a short while at lunchtime. To allow people to do this, give them a suitable amount of time to be able to take a proper break. Provide kitchen facilities that offer what they need to store and prepare lunch, and that are nice to spend time in, so they’re more likely to actually use them instead of retreating back to their desk to eat.
To really boost morale, organize occasional team lunches. Tie these in with projects to make sure are getting the breaks they need at the same time as rewarding them for their hard work. These lunches also give you a great opportunity to chat to your team on an informal level, to get to know them outside of work, and hear their feedback in a less formal setting.
Remember that nobody will tackle employee morale if you don’t. You must communicate regularly with your employees, and challenge them just enough to encourage them to grow without stressing them out. When people feel encouraged, they will do their best work and can do so with confidence. This leaves you more time to get on with running your company.
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