It’s quite evident that employees with high morale are happy and they enjoy their work.
On the other hand, employees with poor morale are unsatisfied and have a negative attitude toward their work.
In this article, we first define what actually is team or employee morale, why it is important, what are those factors which negatively affect morale and how to boost employee morale and motivation.
What is Employee’s Morale at Work?
Employees morale refers to their attitudes, outlook, and satisfaction towards work.
It’s about how an employee feel about his/her work and how they approach his/her daily routine tasks. How an employee view organizational values and mission and what he/she think about their organization.
It reflects how employees are motivated and how good is culture of a workplace. Overall employees’ morale is reflection of overall mood a workplace.
Why Employee’s morale is Important?
Employees’ morale is important because it contribute to organizational productivity and performance. The higher the team morale the more productivity.
Among other benefits, employees with higher morale are satisfied with their work so they stay longer period of time with their organization.
Employees with high morale also contribute to build better organizational culture. They bring in more creative and innovative ideas which will ultimately lead to organizational success.
Factors Affecting Employee’s Morale at Work
Team morale is influenced by various factors and given below are some of the factors which negatively affect team morale:
Organization Culture
It may come as a surprise, but the organization is one of the most significant and influential factors affecting team morale.
The organizational culture influences the attitude of an employee toward his or her work. It’s hard to motivate employees and build a team with high morale when an organization has weak culture and where there are no values.
Lack of Purpose
It’s always important that employees should know that how their work contribute to achieving big purpose. That big purpose is defined by their organization.
But it is important that employees should relate to it and believe that how much meaningful work they are doing.
Without knowing purpose of their work, there is strong likelihood that employees lose their direction and ultimately get trapped in low morale towards their work.
Nature of Work
The type or nature of work or jab also determines employee’s morale.
If an employee is expected to execute the same task every day, boredom will surely negatively affect his/her morale.
Team morale can be affected by an unorganized work if the employee believes he or she is just a machine in a factory line rather than a real person. Other environmental factors, like heat stress at the workplace also contribute to low level of morale.
Health Issues
Both mental and physical health of employees are crucial for their morale at the workplace.
But mental health is more important because it’s difficult to recognize symptoms of problematic mental health. And there are many factors at workplace which may be affecting mental health of employees at workplace.
Employees feeling anxiety, stress, fear of failure and depression are few symptoms which are responsible for low morale.
Lack of appreciation or reward
It’s quite natural that employees want appreciation and rewards for their good work. Whenever they are recognized for their work, they feel motivated and their morale is high.
On the other hand, if their work goes unnoticed and unappreciated, it causes low morale. At some workplaces there is negative culture that managers and leadership have a tendency to point out only mistakes and criticize their employees.
Such practices always lead to low morale among their employees.
Negative Supervision
The level of supervision that an individual receives has a significant impact on his or her morale.
If employees lack direction or don’t grasp the organization’s aims and commitments, the superiors’ and leadership’s responsibility is to bring them all on the same page.
However, there should not be excessive involvement because if staff is allowed the freedom to work, their morale will rise.
Work-Life Balance
The majority of organizations overlook the significance of a healthy work-life balance.
Employees must have certain activities to engage in while at work. It is critical to provide suitable guidance and counselling to staff as needed.
Benefits of Team Morale at Work
Morale is a binding force. Teams with high morale can accomplish anything.
Positive workplace morale is important for organizations since it has many benefits and let’s learn what are key benefits of team morale at work.
Productivity of employees
Employees that have a good sense of morale are more likely to perform at their best.
Employees generate more work faster when they believe in their company’s objective and envision themselves progressing in their careers with it.
Retention of employees
Team morale can make them feel helpless, undervalued, and disregarded, leading to higher turnover. Maintaining a high level of staff morale is critical for minimizing unnecessary attrition and increasing employee loyalty.
Employee motivation
Employees are motivated to take action to achieve their work goals when they are valued and provided opportunities to grow their professional talents. Employees with high morale have a habit of taking initiatives which lead to organizational success.
Communication
Employees are capable to communicate effectively when their morale is high. Because they are confident and they know how to communicate often with their colleagues and managers.
Employees with low morale have problematic relationship at workplace which negatively affect their ability to communicate with other co-workers.
Collaboration
Employees with strong morale are more completely involved with the work before them, rather than feeling overwhelmed by work related challenges.
Employees that feel appreciated and in sync with their peers are more driven and delighted to work on new projects with their co-workers.
07 Ways to Boost Employee’s Morale and Motivation
Here are seven ways that managers and business leaders can boost employee’s morale at workplace:
1. Focus on your morale first
The first and foremost is to focus on your own morale. Employees usually follow their supervisors, managers and leaders.
Being a manager or leader if you are satisfied with your work and you have good morale then this message will go down and workers will follow you.
For instance, if you expect your employees to be positive, then first you have to show and express positivity through your communication, gestures and work.
2. Know morale of your team
It’s important to know morale level of your team by regular monitoring and taking direct feedback from your team.
The best way is to meet your team quite often. These meeting could be in groups or one-on-one sessions are also effective to understand how they feel about their work.
You can ask direct questions like are you happy with your work? what are your suggestions to make you more satisfied at workplace? Discussing these issues help your employees to share their feedback and this bring in positivity within them.
3. Build a healthy work culture
Being a leader or manager, it’s your responsibility to create a healthy and positive environment at your workplace.
It’s not just about physical environment or ambience but create a culture where employees respect and motivate each other to work towards organizational goals.
Another aspect of a healthy workplace is teamwork. Everyone behaves professionally and comes forward to help each other to achieve common purpose.
4. Create a balance between employee autonomy and accountability
Many employees desire autonomy at work, while employer demand accountability. There should be a fine balance between autonomy and accountability.
The rule of thumb for this is to allow certain level of autonomy and independence to your employees. It will surely boost their morale and motivation.
But on the other hand, hold them accountable on their major tasks and deadlines. Too much accountability may be counterproductive and will negatively affect morale of employees.
5. Appreciate and give rewards to employees
Nothing works better than acknowledging good work of your employees and giving them due rewards.
One of a study done recently revealed that nearly half of employees leave their job because they don’t receive appreciation from their supervisors and managers.
When you acknowledge your employees on achieving something big or small, it boosts their morale and motivation. And employees feel more satisfied and become more productive.
6. Develop effective leadership style
Since managers and business leaders have a direct contact with their employees so they should focus on improving their leadership style.
By developing effective leadership style, managers will be capable to boost employee’s morale. Managers should give emotional support and confidence to employees when they are under pressure and stressed out due to work.
Managers should also consider instituting an open-door policy so that team members feel free to provide feedback and share problems anytime they need to.
7. Trust your Employees
Gone are the days when you are required to control your employees to get the work done. Now you should empower them to take initiatives, make decisions and take responsibility of their work.
All of this requires a certain level of trust you have to show towards your employees.
Many research studies point to the fact that when employees feel empowered and they have control on their work then their morale is high and they are more successful and productive.
Conclusion
It’s quite obvious that a happy employee with a good morale will be more productive towards work. But the challenging task for managers is to find out how to boost employee morale and motivation. There are certain factors which negatively affect employees morale. Managers need to keep a vigilant eye on these factors. But more important is to find certain ways to build team with high morale. These ways should be adopted and followed by managers and leaders to keep their employee’s morale always high.
