You may not realize the financial cost to your business when your team members are unhappy. An effective leader knows how to monitor, maintain, and, when necessary, improve staff morale. If you can monitor staff morale, you will be surprised how easy it is to make improvements when you start to decline. When you complete a leadership training course, you can begin to understand how to maintain high levels of morale in the workplace as part of the balance between achieving goals and leading people.
Here are just six of the reasons why personal morale can have such an impact on bottom line results.
Improved productivity
When staff morale is high, everyone works well. Productivity generally improves when staff love to go to work. You will find that some people show up early or stay late without expecting rewards, simply because they love being at work and enjoy tasks. For an efficient workplace with high levels of productivity, work to make your staff enjoy the workplace.
Improved performance and creativity
Individuals perform best when staff morale is high. Try holding a brainstorming meeting to solve a problem on a project when the morale is high and you’ll be surprised how quickly creative solutions come. Hold the same meeting between a team of depressed, bored, or distracted workers, and you will see the meeting drag on with no response to the problem.
Reduced number of vacation days
A big cost to any business is the number of days off staff take. If your morale is low, it’s easier to take a single day off instead of dragging yourself to the workplace. Positive morale staff reduce sick days as staff enjoy the job, want to attend, and are less inclined to disappoint the team. When someone is sick or on sick leave, you have to pay for the person’s sick leave, replacements and the corresponding loss of productivity.
Greater attention to detail
When staff enjoy work, people pay attention to what they are doing. When morale is low, people are more likely to get distracted, make mistakes, or work slower.
In a safer workplace
People pay attention to safety rules when staff morale is higher. With fewer distractions and a greater focus on the task at hand, accidents are generally reduced.
Higher quality of work
Ultimately, the work itself becomes of higher quality when people enjoy what they are doing. Staff members with high morale produce higher quality work than staff with low or negative morale.
How to improve staff morale
The first step to improving staff morale is creating a culture in which your team understands that their well-being and morale in the workplace are important to you as a leader.
To improve personal morale, it is necessary to understand, in the first place, what has caused the drop in morale. Arguments between team members, intimidating supervisory actions, or the possibility of losing a job are among the common reasons why staff will leave. A heavy workload or feeling underappreciated are other reasons people leave the workplace. Listen closely to your staff and see if you can figure out why morale is dropping.
So how does staff morale rise?
Show concern, give appropriate feedback, and be enthusiastic and genuine in your appreciation for your team. These are basic facets of leadership. However, you can go further. Find out what motivates each staff member and award rewards that match that motivation. One person may appreciate having an hour to spare, while another will want a movie ticket.
Of course, you need to be able to listen, motivate, and show appreciation for your team members in order to increase staff. You can learn these skills through leadership training.