Key Points:
- Workplace morale starts with upper management’s involvement in curating a positive work environment.
- Leaders can boost workplace morale by including transparency, feedback, recognition, work-life balance, and empowering their team.
Employee morale is the backbone of your company’s culture. Positive workplace morale can lead to more productivity and reduce turnover. While it’s important to remember that incentivizing your employees with a competitive salary, there are many additional ways that you can show your appreciation. So, how can you ensure that your team keeps positive morale? We are sharing five ways to boost workplace morale as a leader.
Get Feedback
First, listening is the only way to understand how your employees or team feels. Some employees may not feel comfortable discussing their thoughts on the company with their manager, so we recommended offering an anonymous way for employees to submit their feedback and suggestions. This way, employees feel empowered to provide their input without retaliation. You can use many websites to ensure the feedback is anonymous, such as Survey Monkey. Here is a link to 13 different anonymous feedback tools you can use.
Employee Recognition
Employees not recognized for their accomplishments are less motivated to accomplish more. Quantum Workplace’s Employee Engagement Report found that recognized employees are 2.7x more likely to be engaged. So, let your team know when they’ve completed a task well (big or small), and celebrate work anniversaries, promotions, and even birthdays. Showing that you care about your team or employees can make them feel recognized and appreciated.
Transparency
Whenever there’s a looming office rumor, it’s usually based on a lack of transparency. So, if there’s information that can impact your team, sharing information with your team can increase trust and decrease negativity around the office. An additional way to ensure transparency around roles and expectations is to have all information available for respective team members with their tasks, training, and thorough onboarding. Having your team start with a great foundation will ensure they have all the necessary information.
Empower Your Team
Finding ways to empower your team can look like growth opportunities in the workplace and payment for further educational courses or certifications. However, there’s one leading method that often leaves employees discouraged – micromanaging. If handholding is needed, it could be either lack of communication or skillsets. Communicating with your team can empower them to complete the task in their way and make them feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts.
Encourage Work-Life Balance
Even though we spend most of our time in the workplace, we can’t be 100% productive all the time, and everyone needs to find a work-life balance. So, leaders should encourage their team to take breaks every so often each workday to activate creativity and problem-solving skills. Additionally, an employer and leader that leads by example is always the best policy. So, try working only during office hours to set expectations that your team shouldn’t work late at night. That said, every employee’s time should be respected to reiterate a work-life balance, including vacation and sick time.
Maintaining positive employee morale is ongoing and takes effort across departments. We encourage partnering with committees in the organization or the human resources department to implement these efforts across the company. Try reading 10 Characteristics Of A Great Leader for more articles like this.
