Staff Morale

How often do we think that by implementing a monthly award programme for the best employee, or paying an extra bonus, or sending the top employees on a trip we will see a huge increase in employee morale? These types of programmes are really only bandaid solutions and usually cause more overall dissatisfaction than benefits.


The solutions to resolving flagging morale is far more basic and fundamental to the business than offering superficial benefits.


This may come as a surprise but research has shown that in most industries the primary factor affecting employee satisfaction is their relationship with their immediate manager. In order to improve morale within your company or your own work group you need to take an honest look at either your own behaviour or performance as a leader, or that of your manager.


Let’s start with a simple quiz.


• Have you reviewed the job descriptions for the positions in your department or work group to make sure that they are up-to-date?
• Do your staff members understand what is expected of them, not only within their specific job requirements but also in terms of organisational policy and procedures?
• When one of your employees falls short do you take action and hold him/her accountable, let it slide, or worse, leave it to HR to sort out? To gain respect from your staff you have to be seen to be implementing discipline fairly when it is required.
• Do you have regular staff meetings to let employees know what is going on in the organisation or do your staff get most of their info via the rumour mill?
• Are you open to feedback from your staff? If someone makes a suggestion do you take the time to consider it and give appropriate feedback to your employee?
• When your team is successful do you make a point of recognising them publicly or do you take the credit on their behalf? When you promote the success of your team as a whole you are, in fact, promoting your own success by default – the difference being is that everyone benefits when you promote your team.
• One of the big issues facing many organisations today is that often they promote people into management positions based on their technical skill without any proven ability or experience in managing people. The person promoted may do a great job in the short term but research has shown that in the longer term, if that person does not receive training in people management and/or development, major staff issues are far more likely to arise than if that manager had been equipped with the necessary management training.

Top-ranking motivators were rated highly in how they led, supported and actively involved their staff members. Ratings included:


• Provision of relevant information employees required to do their jobs well
• Involvement of employees in the decision-making process (especially in those decisions that directly affected them)
• Asking employees for their opinions and ideas
• Supporting employees when they made a mistake
Autonomy and authority, such as allowing them to decide how best to do their work, allowing them to pursue ideas they might have for improving things, and giving them a choice of work assignments, also ranked highly among employees. So did flexible working hours, learning and development opportunities, and the availability and time of their manager.

Employees need leaders whom they can look up to and respect. Research shows that this is not based so much on knowledge but on attitude. As a leader you must:


1. Set standards.
2. Inform all employees of those standards.
3. Document an employee who is falling below those standards.
4. Attempt to help that employee. (After all, would you rather have that employee improve than terminate their employment?)
5. Provide further (documented) training. Ask the poor performer what they need to do better and ensure that they understand what the standard is.
6. Treat all employees consistently - and don't be afraid to terminate a member of a protected or majority class. You have to be consistent, truly base your decisions on performance and document those decisions.
7. Resist the urge to initiate a probationary period when performance is below par. As long as you are providing additional training or making some other change for which you believe the employee needs time to improve, you have a certain amount of time before re-evaluation without resorting to demoralising probationary periods.
8. Follow through with termination of an employee if no improvement is evident.


The organisation may have limited resources to reward employees financially and/or may have determined that a pay-for-performance program is too difficult to administer effectively. But there is no reason why YOU can't take some initiative in recognising your staff members for their contributions. Even if you just spotlight someone in a staff meeting, or buy him/her a cup of coffee, it's an expression of appreciation - and that's what your employees really want to hear.

 

 

 

Machinery Automation & Robotics
1/101 Derby Street
Silverwater NSW 2128
Phone: (61) 2 9748 7001
http://www.machineryautomation.com.au