Sustaining Employee Morale

Motivation

Employee morale is a qualitative measurement of how well employees are motivated and how they view their job. Motivation can come in the form of compensation, recognition, personal drive and loyalty to the organization.

Compensation is why people show up to work. It is the other factors that motivate employees to step-up beyond their minimum requirements and become actively engaged in the success of the organization.

An organization that can reward employees, recognize their work and follow through on promises will be able to foster strong employee morale.

Alternately, just collecting a paycheck will not be sufficient motivation for an employee to go beyond what is expected of them.

Communication

Nothing is more important in sustaining or developing employee morale than effective communication.

In fact, nothing comes close to communication in sustaining morale or in destroying morale through the lack of communication.

In larger organizations, the top-level management generally keeps a lid on potential changes up until the change actually happens. Two problems stem directly from this particular lack of communication.

When employees are not in the loop they begin to fill in the blanks themselves. Gossip creates rumors that usually grow out of proportion to the actual issue.

The problem here is when the change comes around, employees are already worked up. Now they have to deal with the actual organizational change.

In a perfect world, top-level management would communicate with employees and even hear out any employee ideas.

Nothing will improve employee morale more than to have the employees feel as though they are involved in the ideas that directly impact the organization. That feeling of ownership fuels an employee to come to work and be ready to positively impact the organization's business.

Gifts, Bonuses and Bribes

The problem with employee morale is that once it is negative, it becomes extremely difficult to deal with. Employees will have an unfavorable view of the organization and specifically management.

At this point, anything like gifts or bonuses might be viewed as a small appeasement to the overlying issues.

An employee morale issue can only be dealt with through communication, and then follow-up action. Communication is useless without the positive action that responds to it.

Whether you are an employee or a supervisor, any signs of diminishing morale should be addressed before it can become an issue.

Don't be afraid to talk to your boss. It creates a healthier working environment.