Is your team experiencing a decrease in energy and excitement? Noticing more sighs and rolling eyes than usual? Is every task amongst your team becoming more sloppy than usual?
If your answer is yes to any of the above stated questions, then chances are that your team is low on morale. Low morale is more than just passing bad mood. It stems from a diminishing sense of job satisfaction. Factors such as increased pressure, a miserable client or a round of lay-offs can be a few of the many reasons of low morale among the team.
What is Employee Moral?
Employee morale is the overall point of view of an employee that comprises of sentiments, contentment and insolence level of an employee. In simpler terms it is the complete outlook of an employee when they are at a work place.
Morale of an employee is directly related to the efficiency and performance of an employee. Employees that feel disconnected at work show low morale. The ones who have a positive outlook are supposed to maintain a high morale.
No matter what causes a low morale, as a manager it is your responsibility to lift and keep the spirits of your team high.
Here is what you can do?
#1 Celebrate Small Successes
Busy days, weeks, months and years. At a workplace you will always be busy. You will always have work to finish. This implies that there is no time to stop and celebrate small achievements. Take a moment, recognize your team members for a job well done. This is one of the easiest, cheapest and an effective way to keep the spirits high.
Make sure you take time out and recognize people of your team in the right way. Just do not hand out meaningless compliments. As a manager keep a note of events where someone in your team has improved or gone a line ahead to bring profit to the organization.
Also, highlight individual’s doing in front of others. Recognizing your team in front of higher-ups make the team feel valued.
#2 Keep a Note of Their Special Days
With a little effort, you can keep the morale of your employees boosted. Instead of celebrating every employee’s birthday on a particular day, you can celebrate once a month involving every employee whose birthday falls in that month.
Send across greeting cards on other special days of their lives (anniversary for example).
#3 Have Fun Team Goals
As a manager, you definitely have team goals. That is the backbone of every management strategy. Annual performance metrics, deliverables and project goals might be great motivators but on a daily basis these might be a little difficult to handle.
So develop some short goals. These might not be oriented just around work, but can be fun too. Giving the team to work for something in a short duration and rewarding them in return is a great motivation for the employees.
#4 Keep the Environment Employee Friendly
The infrastructure of the organization where you work for makes a lot of difference. As a manager make sure that the working conditions for team are comfortable. This includes proper lights, proper temperature and a comfortable working system. Too much IT complications can create a hassle for your employees.
#5 Proactively Face Employee Frustrations
Even when you think you are doing enough to keep the spirits of your team high, it is completely normal for any of your team members to face moments of low. You can two things in such a case:
– Wait for the period to pass naturally
– Use moments of frustration to seek feedback and look for solutions
The later wants you to find out what is wrong with the team members and what is making them feel all-time low. Find solutions and know what you can do to make them feel better. These conservations might not be one of the comfortable conversations that you have with your team mates, but is a great way getting honest feedback.
#6 Maintain Transparency within Employees
The employees should have a complete knowledge about the whereabouts of the company. If such is not the case, the efficiency might get effected due to some blanks that remain unfilled. The unfilled blanks can be filled by blather and anxiety that can lead to misapprehensions.
#7 Make Them Feel Important
If the employees do not feel valued, it is one of the biggest reasons that causes low morale for them. Give your employees new responsibilities so that they have something new to look forward to.
Also, other things like availability of top management makes them feel good and a part of the organization. You definitely feel good and important if the high-ups are available to advise and help you at any given moment.
#8 Build Faith with Your Employees
Trust is vital to build for any a relationship to be healthy and blooming. With your employees it is very important to have a trust factor embedded in the relationship. There are three types of trust every manager should have:
– Capability trust that allows the employees to make decisions all by themselves
– Contractual trust that acknowledges the potentials of an employee
– Communication trust that lets them share information and offer positive response.
Last Things to Remember
As a manager remember that your prime responsibility is to keep the spirits of your team high or lift them whenever there is a low. Take your team morale as your highest priority and be consistent and with your efforts. Keep a regular communication with your employees, respond actively and recognize accomplishments.
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