Increasing Employee Morale – 5 Simple Steps to Get Started

Employee morale can’t be ignored in modern business. If you want to get the most out of your workforce, regardless of what industry you operate in, understanding what keeps people motivated, engaged and happy is vital.

Prioritising employee engagement and wellbeing is no longer a nice to have extra, but rather a core pillar for businesses.

To get started, take a look below at these 5 simple ways businesses can increase morale and engagement in their workforce. It doesn’t matter if you’re a family business or a multinational corporation, these simple ideas can easily make a difference.

Increasing Employee Morale

1. Recognise and Reward

Recognising your employee’s hard-work and efforts is so simple but incredibly effective at boosting morale and engagement.

As Primary Colours Surveys discuss in a recent article, “don’t wait until a quarterly review before you tell someone they are doing a great job. Make it a regular occurrence, whenever something goes well. Morale will be boosted, and employees will be motivated and passionate to keep going.”

It’s simple enough, but when managers and leaders get busy, acknowledging success can often get overlooked and ignored, which can contribute to disengagement and employees feeling disconnected from the business. So make sure recognition is top of the agenda.

2. Transparency

Transparency is largely about respect and trust. When senior managers and leaders hide away in secret board meetings and don’t tell employees wants happening behind closed doors, employee engagement can often decline. Which makes complete sense – employees feel like they don’t know what’s going on in the organisation.

Ensuring the organisation is communicating as often and openly as possible can be a great way to empower employees and create transparency.

3. Clarity and Meaning

Do your employees have true understanding of their roles and the impact they make in the organisation?

If not, it’s likely this is impacting office morale.

If staff don’t actively see their actions contributing to something, they could end up unmotivated and jaded. People want to know that their work matters and they are making a difference, regardless of how big or small. So helping employees to feel they have a clear understanding of their role, impact and purpose within the team or organisation can make a huge positive difference to engagement and morale.

4. Relationships

One of the defining factors of a happy workplace is when everyone gets on and genuinely likes the people they are working with. This means having the processes in place that foster team engagement and encourage employees to work together so that they can forge strong relationships.

Organising team events and activities outside of work can also be important way for employees to really get to know each other. Prioritising these team focussed activities is a key part of growing healthy teams and improving engagement within any organisation.

5. Perks

Every office tries to come up with unique office perks to attract and retain their top talent. But before you go overboard and buy “sleeping pods” or table foosball, make sure what you offer are the things that your employees will actually want.

Some of the trendy offices may be fun for a day or two, but are they truly addressing the key factors that impact your employee’s engagement and wellbeing?

Employee engagement surveys, interviews and focus groups can help you understand exactly what type of office perks employees want and will make a real, lasting difference.