Top 5 Ways To Boost Employee Morale
Charlette has over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance and 2 years of partnering with HR leaders on freelance projects. She uses this extensive experience to answer your questions about payroll.
Jennifer Hartman is an HR Specialist and staff writer for Fit Small Business, with over 15 years of experience in accounting, payroll, and human resources.
Maintaining employee morale is essential for a successful business. Boosting morale can be done through various means, such as creating a positive work environment, providing feedback and recognition, and developing a sense of community. By implementing these strategies, businesses can also improve employee satisfaction and productivity.
The best way to know how to improve employee morale is to review data regularly and then act on it by speaking with your team about their needs, training your managers, encouraging people to take time off, and reviewing your benefits package.
1. Measure Employee Morale
Before you can take action, you first need to measure employee morale to identify what you must improve on. Here are some approaches you can take to measure it.
Conduct Anonymous Surveys
One of the best ways to get a genuine sense of employee morale is through anonymous surveys. Some employees are understandably suspicious of whether a survey is truly anonymous, so use an established platform to gather these results. Many platforms gather and compile results for you, using aggregate data that shows trends in your company.
SurveyMonkey is a free platform where you can create unlimited surveys with up to 10 questions each. Responses are anonymous and can integrate with third-party software, such as Salesforce—delivering your results right to your network.
You can also create your own surveys by customizing our free Employee Engagement Survey below.
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Your survey should be short, consisting of at most 10 questions that ask employees about their happiness at work, if their manager supports them in their role, if their productivity has been recognized, if they would refer someone to work at the company, and more. These items specifically can help you understand where your employees’ morale sits.
To obtain a more concrete figure, use a scale of 1-5 to determine the morale of your employees.
1 = Not at all/never/no/poor
2 = Rarely/probably not/not great
3 = Sometimes/occasionally/maybe/decent
4 = Often/most likely/pretty good
5 = All the time/very much/yes/awesome
Surveying workers also gives you data from across the company. While you won’t know which employees answered each question, you will be able to chart this data and gain impressions. Say you asked all 10 staff members to rate their happiness on a scale of one through five—if more than one gave a low rating, you need to take action, as low morale can spread like wildfire.
According to statistics, there is a 14.9% lower turnover rate in companies that regularly conduct employee feedback surveys.
Analyze Turnover & Absenteeism Patterns
High employee turnover is usually a sign of problems in your organization and can exacerbate morale issues. When employees see colleagues leaving in droves, they get concerned about what’s going on and may become disengaged.
There are many causes of turnover, some outside of your control, so taking proactive steps to combat it can help change the trend. Look at your historical turnover data over the last quarter, six months, and year. If you see high turnover rates at any point, you may have a morale problem.
The same is true for absenteeism. It is a problem that can have serious consequences for an organization. It can lead to decreased productivity and morale, as well as increased costs. To reduce absenteeism, employers should focus on prevention by providing remote work for commuting or travel issues, a family-related PTO policy for caring for loved ones, and good employee benefits, such as health insurance (i.e., free annual checkups) for those with health concerns.
According to research by the University of Warwick, happy employees work harder and are 12% more productive. As such, by working on the pain points of your employees regarding their work, not only will they have higher morale and be happier, but your business will improve in the long run.
Conduct Performance Reviews
Great managers support employees and give them the space required to succeed. While every manager should know what their team is working on and do whatever they can to support them, they shouldn’t micromanage.
Managers should review performance with each individual on their team at least once per year in a formal setting and more frequently in less formal environments. Even for informal discussions, managers should record information discussed and any relevant performance data. This data can be used to spot patterns of poor performance, which can be a clear indicator of falling morale.
A benchmark report conducted in 2021 suggests that 75% of managers see performance management as a high priority.
2. Provide Growth Opportunities
If employees don’t see change, you’ll lose more ground. Providing growth opportunities through training and development is one of the best ways to bring about positive changes. Investing in your team is a great way to show them that you hear them and act on their desires.
Employee training tools and learning management systems (LMSes) help workers improve their skills and make them better prepared for promotions, which increases their morale and loyalty to your company. Here are a few that you can check out:
- 360Learning – Provides employee and compliance training, customer training, and onboarding
- TalentLMS – Offers industry-specific training and allows for personalized and customized training
- Trainual – Brings all company policies, procedures, and training into one system for easy learning
Employees want to feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves. They also want opportunities to grow and develop within their company and in their personal lives. If a company is stagnant or doesn’t encourage employees to better themselves, morale often drops.
Without growth and new challenges, workers frequently become bored, disengaged, and unmotivated. You might even lose them, further increasing turnover and decreasing morale for those who remain.
Learning programs can help increase morale and loyalty among employees, which can be beneficial to your company. Some of the most common programs include learning new skills, taking courses in new areas of expertise, and participating in professional development workshops.
Did you know?
According to a Namely survey, inspiring your employees to participate in growth opportunities and set goals will keep them motivated.
3. Train Managers
Your managers must have solid people management skills. Too many lack good people skills or don’t prioritize their colleagues when managing a team. Because they work directly with your employees on a micro level, they may directly affect your company’s morale levels.
Employees rarely leave companies; they leave managers. Effective employee management is crucial to employee morale and retention—and that begins with your managers.
When managers are overbearing, aggressive, unsympathetic, and constantly looking over employees’ shoulders, that sets a bad tone. Managers must understand that their behavior directly affects the team and be able to react to employees who need different management styles.
Training them on managing people effectively, executing proper communication, and giving recognition and feedback is crucial. Even if they aren’t the cause of low employee morale, it is their job to fix the issue. So, you must train them to spot and deal with faltering morale.
Some 81% of organizations believe that training their people managers in their roles to support their talent management strategy is a top priority.
Communicate Expectations Clearly
Strong communication is a key skill of managers who enhance employee morale. Your employees need to understand what you need from them. That starts by setting clear and realistic expectations for each employee and position. Leave no ambiguity when discussing what’s needed with each worker and department.
The most effective way to communicate transparently is to hold regular check-ins—tell your team what’s coming and what they can do to push an existing project over the finish line. This is also a great opportunity to speak about their morale and make sure they’re happy and getting the support they need. If it’s clear that one employee or department is struggling, don’t ignore it or try to hide the issue—that’ll only make matters worse.
4. Encourage Disconnection From Work
When companies think about ways to increase morale, they often overlook genuine breaks and disconnection. They think that the way to overcome a drop in morale is to dig deeper and focus intensely on work. Unfortunately, that can have the opposite effect.
Workers today are pretty terrible at taking even a lunch break, let alone a full vacation. That’s because so many companies offer paid time off (PTO) as a benefit but don’t encourage employees to use it. By reminding employees to disconnect, whether it’s for an afternoon or a week, you can help them get refreshed. You might be surprised by the productivity increase you’ll see.
A survey of more than 20,000 millennial and Gen Z workers, found that they want more purposeful and flexible working environments. Encouraging these employees to use their PTO and allowing them flexibility during the workweek will improve their morale and productivity.
5. Offer Great Benefits
The most long-term solution for boosting employee morale is providing great employee benefits that support workers. From high-quality healthcare and retirement plans to PTO and vacation incentives, building an exceptional benefits package will help you attract and retain top talent. While it can be costly at first, investing in your staff members will boost their morale and productivity, increasing your company’s profitability in the long run.
Some common benefits to include are:
- PTO
- Medical insurance (including dental and vision)
- Retirement plans
- Life and disability insurance
- Flexible or remote work options
- Employee referral program
- Wellness programs
- Computer equipment stipend
Did you know?
Around 52% of organizations have plans to improve flexibility and leave policies to better fit the needs of their current workforce.
Why Employee Morale Is Important to Your Business
Employee morale is critical to a business’s success for a number of reasons. Morale influences and interacts with a host of other qualities, including motivation, engagement, satisfaction, and happiness.
Employee motivation vs morale vs engagement: Although closely related and often used interchangeably, these terms are distinct. Motivation is your employees’ drive to get a task, project, or job done; it’s a personal and individual trait that can fluctuate. Meanwhile, morale is the overall satisfaction employees have with your organization. Morale is a key element of engagement, which goes even deeper, representing the internal commitment and enthusiasm an employee has for their employer.
High employee morale generally corresponds with positive developments in the other areas mentioned above, ultimately resulting in increased productivity, reduced turnover, and better-served customers. Low employee morale, of course, generally indicates the opposite and may result in lower productivity and higher turnover.
By understanding the importance of employee morale, businesses can develop strategies to improve how their employees feel about their jobs and employer.
Addressing Employee Morale & Engagement: A Case Study
Let’s take a look at how Google (and parent company Alphabet) has focused on employee morale and engagement to drive results. As one of the world’s largest companies, there are aspects of Google’s corporate culture that won’t be applicable for small and midsize businesses, but the overall approach is worth examining.
In addition to its financial success (it’s one of the world’s top 5 most valuable companies), Alphabet/Google has consistently been named a best place to work by Forbes, Fortune, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor, among other sources.
So, how has it managed this? In large part, by aligning with the tips we’ve covered in this article.
- Measurement: Google’s HR department is guided by science, relying on data analytics (employee turnover rate, manager to employee ratio, number of promotions, etc.) to provide insights and steer decision-making. Additionally, it uses Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), an annual gDNA survey, and tools such as Manager Upwards Feedback to regularly solicit feedback from across the organization.
- Growth Opportunities: The company has made development a key tenet of its culture, which can be seen in its highly lauded Creative Time Program. This program allows employees to devote 20% of their work time to innovative projects of their choice that will challenge them and enable them to explore areas of interest or areas outside their traditional duties.
- Management Training: Managers at Google are trained to be leaders, with a focus on what they do to support, encourage, and drive their team members to success. Being a good coach, listening, and focusing on team member well-being are some of the behaviors emphasized.
- Breaks and Disconnection: Flexible work hours, work-life balance, and work autonomy are all major components of Alphabet’s corporate culture. The idea of disconnection is also built into the company’s actual workspace, with areas of the office meant to enable relaxation, reading, and exercise, among other nonwork activities.
- Great Benefits: Alphabet is known for best-in-class benefits and has historically been a leader in benefits. For example, its transferable stock option program (2006) and employee death benefits (2012) were both cutting-edge offerings. It provides subsidies for various purchases, from gym memberships to electric cars, has cafeterias and snack rooms on its campus, and uses spot and peer bonuses to recognize and reward good employee work.
Another important lesson to learn from Alphabet/Google: Boosting morale and engagement is not a one-time deal. You must continuously evaluate your offerings, initiatives, and culture and make changes when necessary. In 2022, for example, when the company saw that its twice-a-year review process was hurting employee morale, it moved to annual performance reviews.
Bottom Line
Boosting employee morale is essential to a productive and successful workplace. There are many ways to achieve this, including training your management team, providing employee development opportunities, and offering strong benefits. By implementing these strategies, you can help improve your employees’ attitudes and increase their productivity.
