Employee morale and employee engagement will have a defining role in how effective and successful an organisation can be. This means that taking the time to understand how engaged your employees currently are and what is impacting their engagement and wellbeing, is vital for businesses to retain their top talent.
Below, we’ve outlined 8 simple ways businesses can increase morale and engagement in their workforce that any organisation can implement today. It doesn’t matter if you’re a family business or a multinational corporation, these simple ideas can easily make a difference. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so for a full breakdown of what truly motivates, engages, and keeps employees happy, make sure you get in touch with us here at Edgecumbe to learn more about our approach and comprehensive engagement tools.
How to increase employee morale in eight easy steps
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Give recognition
Recognising and showing gratitude and appreciation for the efforts and hard-work of employees and teams is often the simplest but most effective way to quickly boost morale and engagement. 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 unconnected with the business. So, make sure recognition is top of the agenda.
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Show respect and fairness
Regardless of the seniority of someone, everyone deserves respect and to be treated kindly. Sometimes behaviours that negatively impact others can go unnoticed, be ignored or left to one side, but they can be detrimental to the overall morale and atmosphere in an office or workplace even if no harm was intended.
Fairness and respect are things that everyone wants, so businesses should ensure that all employees are treated fairly and that no one feels let down by the organisation. By nurturing a culture that values togetherness, team spirit and respect, businesses will help make those negative behaviours a thing of the past, and they will not be able to hurt employee engagement or morale.
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Increase transparency
Increasing transparency is a simple but effective way to keep morale high. When senior leaders hide away in secret board meetings and don’t tell employees wants happening behind closed doors, employee engagement can often drop.
Transparency is about respect and trust – so when leaders fail to be transparent, employees can feel like they aren’t valued, respected or trusted within the business.
Simply making an effort to improve communication with employees and share company direction, challenges and opportunities can help all employees feel more connected and a valuable part of the business.
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Embrace diversity
As we all spend so much of our day at work, we don’t want it to be a place where we feel like we can’t be ourselves. Encouraging people to be themselves and celebrating everything that makes us different and unique, will create a thriving culture and enhance morale and engagement.
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Offer desirable 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 fulfilling 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.
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Boost staff through treats
Why not catch employees off guard with nice surprises and treats? For example, a morning off, free lunch, afternoon ice cream, and there are lots of other ideas that don’t have to blow the budget. The surprise and sense that the organisation cares about them can instantly help employees feel energised and engaged.
There may be certain times in the year where morale is likely to lower – perhaps during a busy period, or the age-old January blues. A small treat can go a long way to improving morale and engagement during these times by giving employees that little bit of a boost.
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Foster team 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 kinds of things is a key part of growing healthy teams and improving engagement within any organisation.
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Provide clarity about roles
Do your employees have true clarity on their roles and the impact they make in the organisation? If not, it’s likely this is impacting office morale. Even with all the office perks in the world, if staff don’t actively see their actions contributing to something they could end up unmotivated and jaded.
Helping employees to feel they have a clear understanding of their role and their purpose within the team or organisation can make a huge positive difference to engagement and morale.
Creating healthy happy employees with Edgecumbe surveys
Employee morale, engagement and wellbeing are critical for long-term business success. Businesses need to be able to retain top talent and ensure their workforce feels engaged with their mission, targets and values.
The ideas mentioned above barely scratch the surface when it comes to all the factors that will impact employee engagement – luckily, our expert team here at Edgecumbe can support your organisation to get started.
Our House of Engagement model of factors that influence engagement covers all these areas and more, and our surveys can give you a starting point to understand where you already do well and where to focus your efforts to improve engagement and morale.
From surveys, to interviews and focus groups, we can work with you to identify, track and manage the key parts of working life that are correlated to your employees’ wellbeing and engagement.
