If you are in a leadership role, at one time or another you have had to address an employee morale problem. It may have been one that you inherited, or one that you directly or indirectly caused. Regardless of the source, bad morale is not something you can ignore. It will increase staff turnover, reduce productivity, and negatively impact the customer experience.
During my career, I’ve had to address some small and large morale issues and have learned some valuable lessons along the way.
Leaders Own Morale – Good or Bad
The department leadership team, closest to the group of employees, owns “employee morale”, not HR, and not C-level leadership. This is evident when you survey employees who work in different departments within the same medium to large company. One employee might say that they love the company and work environment, while another is de-motivated and dreads coming to work. The department leadership team owns both scenarios.
Morale Can Be Individual
If two employees tell you that department morale is bad, it may or may not be correct. Last year I wrote a post called, “A Rant Against Anecdotal Decision Making” and cautioned against reacting based on the feedback of a few employees. To understand if you truly have a problem to fix, you need to gain the feedback of something that marketing might say looks statistically correct. For example, if you have 100 employees, talk to at least 10 (10%) to diagnose a possible problem.
Front Line Managers Hold The Key To Morale
Many of us work in a structure with a VP, a few Directors and then Managers who directly supervise front line employees. Since these Managers spend the most time with your staff, they are critical to creating a positive work environment. Their words, actions, body language, clothing choices – just about everything – can influence how your employees perceive their roles. Be sure that your Managers have the training, experience and coaching they need, to boost morale within their teams.
Crush The Concept of “Management”
When there is a morale problem, you often hear employees talking about “management”. “Management doesn’t listen. Management is not available”. Management usually includes you, and 4-5 other people- all human, all trying to do a good job. Think about how you can humanize “management” and break down the barriers. For example…Share personal stories. Use self-deprecating (appropriate) humor. Dress more casually. Take the time to talk for 15 more seconds by the coffee pot.
With this said, employees can see through efforts that are not sincere or forced. For example, inviting employees to eat lunch with you, might sound like a good idea to a leader, but the employees may not think so.
You Can Improve Morale With Small Changes
There is often a perception that to improve morale, you need to make sweeping changes, have big meetings with HR etc. I love HR- work with them all the time, but a bunch of scheduled meetings with HR can sometimes make the problem seem worse than it actually is.
I believe that you can improve morale by doing a number of small things, as long as you do them consistently, day after day, week after week. Could be a comment here, a small process change there, and personal note sent interoffice mail. It also needs to be an effort made by every member of the leadership team within the department.
Prevention is the Best Medicine
There are many things you can do to help prevent morale problems from surfacing and help drive a positive work environment. The two actions that I feel are most important are 1) providing ongoing, transparent, honest communication. Give ‘em the facts. Leave out the fluff. And 2) 1nvolving front line employees in decision making, especially on high impact, large projects. They’re the experts and can provide invaluable input.
Here are some other great articles and resources on this topic:
- “Tips for tuning sales by improving employee morale“, Business Knowledge Source
- “How to boost sales staff morale“, By Brian Norris
- “Are you really serious about improving employee morale?” By David Lee, Human Nature Network
- “How to gather and analyze 360 feedback“, by Halogen Software
Do you agree with my recommendations? Have your own? Please add them to the comments.
Copyright June 2010, Marci Reynolds, All Rights Reserved
Interesting article and perspective, but what if your group consists of 6 or 8 people, then two(2)people is a valid sample size, is it not? (ok, that was rhetorical) I guess my point is, while these are good perspectives, everything is relative and I would get so much more out of these (your) articles and perspectives if some relativity was included in them. I have also encountered (and firmly beleive) that morale is, at times, governed by the actions of the company not just the individual “group leaders”. The “group leaders” in those situations are nothing more than a stop gap to minimize attrition due to bad morale, or at a minimum – keep those worhty employees engaged. I have personally seen IC’s (and managers of teams) that are not worth keeping in the organization – when removed from their post, actually have that occurance improve morale. But on a serious note, this is good stuff and food for thought.
Pan T. Suots[Click to quote this in your comment]
Pan.. you bring up some very good points. In smaller departments or companies, the senior leadership team may be more directly involved in creating a positive or negative work environment.
And.. in general, C level execs definitely play a part in employee morale based on the direction they set, the benefits packages they create etc. But, I still believe that the direct department leaders (even “team leaders”) play the most important roles.
Marci Reynolds[Click to quote this in your comment]
Hi Marcy,
I agree with you about the responsibility of the department leaders. However, at the end of the day, also the department leaders are employees who will need a boost in morale once in a while. So, I do not see the responsibility of the C level only in providing the right packages or giving direction. If they miss to keep the morale of their frontline manager up, sooner or later this will leak through. Don’t forget, the fish starts to reek at its head.
Roy Schoettle[Click to quote this in your comment]
I agree it is each team leaders responsibility to keep morale up for their group. There are great points brought out in all the comments I read.
Notably, there are Senior Managers who report to C levels. It is the responsibilty of C level to perform the same morale boosting required of their subordinates.
Also, it is important to use probing queries for factual dialogue vs. questions that will lead to defensive or inflated general answers. Facts create trust and respect (not always liked); and facts are actionable moving the business forward.
Pamela[Click to quote this in your comment]
Stop asking, “So did you close it?” ….At least 80% of the time the answer is ‘No’ and no sales exec wants to keep giving the SM the ‘bad’ news. Ask them instead what they achieved in the way of a committment to an ‘advance’ which is a far more likely and achievable goal….and it shows the sales person is still in control.
Conversley the bad news story is hidden in “They thought it was great!!….they’ll let us know soon”…Now it is highly likely the whole thing is in Sales Forecast Limbo where it will remain for ever .
Bob[Click to quote this in your comment]
Interesting article, ideas and comments. But where’s the part where employees own their own morale?
HR is stretched in every direction and spends their day keeping the company out of legal trouble and trying to fill positions or come up with nice ways to tell people they’re fired. C-suiters are trying to keep the company afloat and keep their own jobs. Sad to say it’s every man for himself and employees need to band together to help solve the morale issue.
Rich DiGirolamo[Click to quote this in your comment]
Good article.
Sometimes a GENUINE thank you and a pause to recognize efforts and celebrate success can go a very long way. It keeps employees looking forward to their accomplishments rather than feeling the endless cycles of work they have to do.
Ali[Click to quote this in your comment]