A good business owner knows when their workplace morale has hit its low point.
Often it involves employees looking as though they have been dragged into work, employees that look distraught, and a higher rate of employee turnover.
Morale is not just important for employee retention; business morale is what fosters better cooperation, increased production, and improves your profits. Check out these common reasons workplace morale tanks - and how to fix them.
- Employees Do Not See or Feel Like They are Part of the End-Goal
Your employees are working for your business so that your business can achieve something bigger. However, if they are unaware of the end-goal or how they are working toward it, you may find that they are unmotivated to help you reach those goals.
You can overcome this just by motivating and inspiring your team with your vision. Tell them where you want to be, why you have set the goals you have, and the ultimate purpose of your business.
- Wasted Potential for Employees
Workplace morale falls when talent goes to waste.
You have hired talented professionals to do a job, but perhaps they are overqualified for that job or have different interests than what the job offers. When this happens, an employee ultimately becomes bored or frustrated.
For employees that are overqualified, see if there is an opportunity to move them into a more advanced position. It saves you the financial loss of turnover and could improve the employee’s outlook on work.
- Employees Feel their Boss Does Not Care
As a small business owner, you know that leadership is critical, but so is showing your human side.
You should show employees that they are more than just a worker bee. That means recognizing birthdays, sending flowers for new babies, offering wedding congratulations, and more.
Forbes highlights that employees are the lifeblood of your business; therefore, taking care of them should be your priority. After all, without your staff, where would your business be?
- Work Has Become “Ordinary”
Employees should feel their work is extraordinary.
To do this, you may need to leave the routine of cubicles and traditional work styles. Consider an open floor plan for your office staff or use the collaborative workforce rather than each employee working on their own.
Adding some friendly competition among teams or even departments can also help boost team building as well as overall morale.
- Inconsistent Team Goals
Giving your employees something to work toward is excellent. However, those goals must be consistent. If you tell an employee one thing, but change the target later, your employee may not have a solid sense of what is important or ever feel as though they have accomplished.
Assign your team something they can accomplish, and give clear guidelines so that there is never any confusion about what your expectations are of them. Most importantly, tell staff when they have reached their goal and give them a moment to celebrate that fact.
How do you boost workplace morale? Share a time you noticed a morale downfall and what you did to fix it.
