4 Ways to Improve Employee Morale

How would improving employee morale enhance your organization? Maybe it could improve production and collaboration, decrease absenteeism, and even improve employee’s work-life balance. Doesn’t that sound good?

Having employees that believe they have a positive work-life balance can actually increase their productivity by 21%.  And those that don’t feel they have it are more likely to leave the company:

“One study revealed that one out of four workers who felt they had no support structure for adequate work-life balance made plans to quit in the following two years, in comparison to 17 percent who felt they had support,” says William Craig at Forbes.com.

Improving morale also impacts the bottom line. Companies spend $160 billion every year on paid sick leave, but decreasing stress and improving morale can reduce this expense.

Here are 4 things you can implement (starting today!) that will help improve morale in your organization:

1. Encourage feedback (and then implement changes based on those suggestions)

When employees have new ideas for ways to improve an organization, it can be exciting. Their dream is for management to actually listen to their ideas and hopefully implement change, which can be turned into tangible productivity. However, it can be quite frustrating when no one really listens.

To not only encourage feedback but also make the most of employees’ suggestions, give your employees time to be creative and propose new ideas. Once they have submitted ideas, use an open environment to share these ideas. One way to do this is to provide a company-wide shared document where employees can submit suggestions and ideas to make the company better. They can then be reviewed by a panel of judges that can ask questions and comment on the feasibility of the idea.

2. Recognize employee accomplishments

When an employee (or team) achieves his goal, it’s human nature to expect feedback for his accomplishment (“Great job, Steve!”). If she doesn’t get it, she’s likely to believe she’s not appreciated and begin to wonder why she worked so hard in the first place.

You can lower your employee turnover rate by having an employee recognition program in place. Schedule a time to recognize major accomplishments within your organization. In addition to monetary awards, most employees will enjoy the recognition in front of their peers.

3. Give real-time, honest feedback

While recognizing major accomplishments is important, it’s also critical to provide real-time honest feedback. This is an easy way to improve morale and make employees feel they are appreciated. As a manager, when you see someone doing well or accomplishing a difficult task, take the time to praise them. On the other hand, if you notice them doing something incorrectly, provide constructive criticism to help that employee do better.

4. Lead employees to their next promotion

Be transparent with what employees need to do to get to their next promotion. By providing clear expectations and guidelines, employees will know what they need to do to achieve the promotion and then what is expected after they get it.

Raise Your Morale

Improving morale can positively impact your bottom line over time. It can help create a culture of loyalty within your organization, so put in the effort to ensure your staff feels motivated to work hard for you.

Author Profile Jon Forknell is the Vice President and General Manager of Atlas Business Solutions, Inc., a software marketing company specializing in employee scheduling software, including ScheduleBase employee scheduling software, and other business software solutions. In the past, Jon has been recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration as a SBA Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Atlas Business Solutions was named as one of Software Magazine’s Top 500 Software Companies in 2004 through 2007, and 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017.