Home » Business & Work

Top 10 tips for better employee morale

Ranked #116,665 in Business & Work, #966,931 overall

DON'T FORCE FEED THE EMPLOYEES!

Bookmark & Share

The point is, that with unhappy employees, we have a less productive workforce. Most of us have been in situations in which we have felt a bit disgruntled at our boss or frustrated with our company. During those times, we all feel as if the company "owes" us something. This negativity spreads quickly throughout the workforce until many employees start to adopt the same perspective. When our workforce feels that we owe them everything, their attitude towards work changes. An "entitlement mentality" from employees starts to translate into an attitude towards work such as "hey, I still get paid even if I don't give 100% effort, meanwhile that boss is driving a brand new car making money off of my hard work while I am driving this 15 year old Chevy..." Or have you heard this one: "We don't get paid enough to work hard when the boss is not watching." Or how about this: "I just want better pay! I work so hard and all the management does at the end of the year is give us a lousy free meal for the holidays, but what I want is a hard cash bonus...why do they slap me in the face like that?" We, as management, need to stop trying to force feed our employees what we think they want. One of the KEYS to gaining respect and having a motivated workforce is to LISTEN to the employees and consider giving them what THEY want rather than sitting in our board meetings coming up with new and wildly complicated motivational plans that do nothing but allow us to pat ourselves on the back so that we feel good about what we are doing while the employees become more and more frustrated. The following will show you 10 ways to have a happy and motivated workforce, but if you also would like to read about highly effective management strategies, you might want to review one of my management articles here.

TEN TIPS FOR BETTER EMPLOYEE MORALE

These are proven strategies that I personally utilize, and they all work!

These tips are in no particular order of importance because they are all very important. Take a hard look at yourself and how you approach your employees, and see if you can apply some of these strategies in your situation. Your employees will thank you for it, and you will later thank them...because after all, better employee morale will lead to bigger profits, and isn't that the point?

YOUR EMPLOYEES ARE PROFESSIONALS AT WHAT THEY DO. Approach them with that in mind and immediately they will sense and feel empowered by the respect you give their skills.
DON'T MICROMANAGE YOUR PEOPLE! Allow employees to make their own decisions in their tasks. We all know that there are parameters to stay within for each job type, however, within those parameters, don't nit pick on the details as to how each employee does their job. This creates resentment.
TREAT EMPLOYEES AS ADULTS. I don't know how many times I've seen supervisors talk to their employees as if they were children. Employees HATE this, and so do I.
RULES ARE RULES, SO FOLLOW THEM YOURSELF. Respect the rules of your business and hold employees to the same standard. Employees feed off of your example. If they know you follow the rules, they will adopt that attitude, and will not feel like you are "picking" on them personally if you ever need to crack down on them for something.
BE AS TRANSPARENT AS YOU CAN POSSIBLY BE. Employees know when you are being fake. Fake supervisors look like they are always hiding something. Everything you say will be doubted at that point when they talk amongst themselves.
THANK YOUR EMPLOYEES FOR THEIR WORK. When the company comes up with "incentive" programs that appear to be a slap in the face from the employees perspective (because most incentive programs quite frankly stink), go out of your way to one on one explain to them how much you value their contributions. Simply thanking each employee individually from your heart on a weekly or monthly basis will go much further than a free lunch in lieu of bonuses from the management team once a year.
PUT YOURSELF IN THEIR SHOES. No matter what the employee requests, imagine yourself in their position. How would you want your boss to respond? Treat them how you would like to be treated.
STAY POSITIVE! Keep a positive attitude and the employees will copy you over time.
DO NOT TOLERATE NEGATIVITY OR A "CAN'T DO" ATTITUDE. Even if it kills you, try to put a positive spin on any negative things you hear from employees. Eventually, people will give up with trying to drag you down with their negativity. You don't need that and neither do they. Knowing how positive their supervisor is will make employees happier to come to work.
RESPECT EVERYONE IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. Don't belittle any employee in front of others. This one point is the fast track to being the worst supervisor in the world. Any criticism, discipline, or counseling must be taken behind closed doors with an employee. After discipline is handed out if need be, after rejoining the workforce, treat the employee exactly as if nothing has happened. Respect them in front of others and don't single them out as an example.