When considering what makes a good business, people very rarely consider the importance of workplace morale. More often than not, the common answers to this question will be productivity or connectivity; however, it is clear that morale is a huge factor.
In a purely business sense, employees that are generally happy are more productive, meaning they get more work done and usually at a higher quality. Having high morale also means that people are more likely to stick around and will want to contribute to the success of the business more so than those who are unhappy in their place of work. This means that the business will have a low employee turnover rate, which helps attract top talent to enable the business to grow.
On a more personal level, employee morale can drastically affect an individual’s general wellbeing, meaning that they could begin to suffer from serious mental health issues, creating a bad atmosphere in the office.
It is because of these potential benefits – as well as the nasty negatives – that employee morale is vital to a successful business or company and needs to be addressed.
How to Boost Workplace Morale
1) Create an employee survey.
Knowing the issues that are affecting team morale provides companies with the means to address them. A department-wide employee survey is a great way to pinpoint problem areas, and it can also display what is working well. Creating a survey provides a dialogue between employer and employee, which helps make staff feel like they are being heard and that they have a voice. A quality, digital employee survey can be created at inpulse.com.
2) Have a ‘real’ lunch break.
Feeling like you haven’t got much time for yourself can negatively affect morale. Making sure that employees have a work-free lunchbreak can go a long way to making them feel refreshed. If people are spending their allocated time shoveling food into their mouths at their desks, they may not be getting the break they need to keep their minds from getting exhausted. Even a short half-hour away from all work-related activity can boost a worker’s mood, getting them ready to nail the second half of the workday.
3) Do team bonding exercises.
Cohesion between employees goes a really long way to make them feel like a tightknit unit. When workers are comfortable being around each other, they are more likely to work better together in collaborative efforts. There are so many activities a department can do to boost morale and cohesion, ranging from a simple night out or meal to a more adventurous group activity like camping. Check out these suggestions to get inspired.
4) Mentally clock-out when you physically clock-out.
One of the worst things an employee can do is to take their work home with them. By doing this, they fail to separate their work life from their personal life, from the time designated for relaxation and leisure. This, in turn, can make them feel like they cannot get away from work and cannot get a break, which increases stress levels. Stress is the biggest contributing factor to poor morale, so by simply turning off work emails and mentally clocking-out when you physically-clock out, morale can be positively affected.
