Supervisory Management Unit 7
Do your staff members snap into action or seem to glaze over immediately after you ask them to complete a task or attend a meeting? It may not be a big deal if your employees are not excited about performing their duties, provided that they are still completing all basic tasks. In fact, lackluster staff members can completely drag the entire company down. Truthfully, when the team doesn’t really feel motivated to work, absenteeism can rise and productivity can drop.
Generally, their lack of enthusiasm negatively affects the company’s bottom line. In the current difficult financial environment where staff members are usually stretched to their limit and layoffs are frequent, it might be difficult to maintain and keep the spirits of your team up and alive. By investing effort and time into bringing your employees together in harmony and ensure that they all feel valued and respected, you could be certain that your team would overcome hard times and help the company grow stronger and more competitive than ever.
Here are some team strategies that can boost morale in the workplace:
1. Give Your Team an Opportunity to Play
For instance, Google is known to be one of the most innovative companies in the world, but employees do not spend all their working time hunched over their computers. In fact, the company is highly renowned for classic perks, such as a video game rooms, ping-pong tables and a rock climbing wall. You don’t need to have a climbing wall in your budget, but it’s important and necessary for any business to have the same sense of play by buying some board games. In this case, the key is mainly to give your staff members a chance to take a short break during working hours to build mutual friendships and de-stress.
2. Don’t Overwork Your Employees
It’s also important to make sure that your team is not being overworked and are maintaining a better work-life balance. Simply start by setting a good, positive example yourself. For instance, as a manager, by skipping an important family matter to deal with a client emergency, you’re sending a clear message that work is actually important than your family. This can be a surefire way of damaging morale and losing top talent. Additionally, it’s a good idea to take note of who is really overworking and to help them identify ways of cutting back their time in the workplace. Even if you consider hiring new people, it could be well worth the expense to keep a key staff member motivated and also to prevent staff turnover.
3. Organize For Team Events of Out-Of-Office
When there is friction, especially in the workplace, a day together as a team aware from the office could help relax the team’s tension and improve the general mood. When planning any excursion, consider activities that would help encourage everyone to work together as a team, to achieve a common goal. For example, you decide to engage your employees in building structures or to participate in a paintball game, just for a day. When planning such events, it’s important to keep the fitness level and health of your staff members in mind. Then, ensure that you have organized an activity that everyone would be capable of participating in.
4. Offer Free Coffee, Snacks and Meals
In this hard economic times, several companies have actually decided to cut back on some expenses such as free office snacks. It is a bad decision because nothing is more likely to kill the employees’ morale knowing that he/she cannot even count on his/her tea break or free morning coffee anymore. Instead, choose the opposite direction and make sure that your team always gets high-quality food or drinks. This will make and keep staff members happy in the workplace.
5. Advocate for Your Team
When a client or customer is mistreating or deliberately insulting one of your staff members, it’s your responsibility to stand up for your employee. Occasionally, clients can treat an individual member of your team with blatant disrespect. If that happens, standing up for them in a respectful and professional way, even if it means losing a potential business deal, shows how much you really care about your employees. Eventually, chances are that the team is going to be more worthy to you than any belligerent customer or client.
6. Give Your Team More Insight on How the Company Operates
Giving your employees more input, especially into how the whole company runs is also important. Employees usually become easily disengaged if they feel that their opinions don’t really matter at all. In order to counteract such attitude, ensure that everyone has an opportunity to give suggestions or express their opinions on issues regarding the workplace, especially concerning working conditions. It’s possible to find some useful ideas on how work to operate more efficiently.
It’s also important to give your employees some autonomy to establish and implement ideas within their control. Similarly, you can ask your team for opinions or suggestions on how to resolve a problem. Basically, involvement results in an engagement and this can help the staff members feel included and important.
7. Give Credit for Work Well Done
Staff members can in fact become fed-up with their duties and responsibilities when they feel or think their work is not being recognized by their mangers or supervisors. Therefore, be sure to track the progress of every employee and try to recognize anyone that comes up with a better or more innovative solution to an issue or someone who has surpassed a goal.
Conclusively, company awards programs can also serve as a very powerful way of commending your team for making an impact on the company. Consider giving monthly employee awards where winners would get gift certificates, as well as other prizes. Lastly, open communication, a sense of play and respect are all essential hallmarks of a healthy and happy workplace. You can easily transform your workplace by simply following these useful steps and you will see the dedication levels of your employees rise, together with the company’s bottom line.