Staff Morale is a good gauge of:
How people are treated in an organization,- The environment they work in, and
- The relationships they have with others at work; colleagues, supervisor/ manager/ boss, subordinates, and people in other departments, divisions, branches, as well as with suppliers, partners, customers, and whoever else they get into contact with.
Low morale is an indicator that one or more of these aspects aren’t working as well as they could.
Low Morale is contagious
When people aren’t happy about something, they talk about it – they get buddies who feel the same way, and then it escalates and like a cancer grows. Prevent this from happening in your organization.
An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure – a paraphrase of Prevention is better than cure
Recipe for Successful Relations
- Leadership and management styles, with special focus on communication, are key aspects in the recipe for successful relations.
- Organizational culture, and the underlying, unspoken, and mostly unconscious rules for engagement, is also a very strong ingredient in this recipe.
Give employees a voice
When people feel you value their input and contribution, and they have a safe place to air their grievances, it can boost morale (a lot) … unless they have been disappointed too often before, in which case, they have lost trust, and it will take quite a bit more effort to get them to change their opinions.
Find out what is going on in their heads and hearts
However, giving them an opportunity to get it off their chests can still do the trick. You will also get good to great feedback. … AND… I would like to suggest that you do not do an in-house assessment or inquiry, especially if they have lost trust (you will get very diluted results). The single best thing you can do in this situation is to have an external, independent staff audit (as if anonymous). See why here ⇒ for an Independent Staff Audit to gauge Employee Disposition
Beware Window Dressing
If you merely go through the motions and do not make any changes, you will disappoint even further. Management has to be involved and participate fully. If they don’t, it will have even more detrimental results. This is the best way to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs
You cannot run a business without good people, and it is very likely that you will lose them if you do not make an effort to address the problems and issues that plague your business, especially the ones you are unaware of!!!
Not only could you lose your best people, but also get into all kinds of trouble with litigation and other emergencies, depending on the severity of the situation or circumstances.
The worse the situation, the less information you will get out of your staff – you know this is true – because most people who have worked for someone else for any extended periods of time have had experience of this; either first-hand or second-hand.
To Boost morale
- Hear what your staff has to say – Get a Staff Audit done to improve staff morale
- Get great feedback about things you don’t even know are not working
- Prevent mishaps, emergencies, accidents, litigation
- Reduce absenteeism, presenteeism, staff turnover, and stress
- Get the opportunity to change things before they get serious
- Better morale spells better productivity, bottom line, ROI, and better relations
- Eliminate toxic relationships/environments
- Get greater peace of mind, knowing you are ‘on top of things’.
Find out more about the Independent Staff Audit and/or Employee Disposition Assessment, or