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Do your employees drag themselves into work? Is office laughter a vague memory? Your employees' morale may need a boost.
After all, low morale can lead to poor cooperation, low productivity and increased turnover -- and ultimately hinder a business from reaching its goals.
Since employee morale can quickly build or break a company's success, effective leaders often keep a close eye on it and enlist simple and creative approaches to strengthen it. Here a few tactics to think about adapting for your business:
1. Say Thank You
Seriously. Make it a point to single out employees when they do a good job and say thank you. Be genuine and sincere. If you have a client or customer who thanks you for your services, be sure to pass that on to your employees too. Publicly recognize them for their role in satisfying that customer’s needs. If a customer or client singles out a particular employee, send a thank you note to them at their home praising their good work and efforts. Send out a tweet or Facebook post acknowledging that employee’s contributions.
2. Be Accessible
Take breaks with your employees or eat lunch with them. Do more listening than talking. By spending time with your workforce, you will be able to glean more ways to take care of them in practical ways.
3. Use Gift Cards
Employees always welcome gas cards, grocery store cards, big box store cards, coffeehouse gift cards, and even movie tickets. These are nice, relatively inexpensive rewards to use when money is tight, yet you want to say thank you in a tangible way that they’ll appreciate.
4. Support Community Involvement
Provide company time for employees to serve a meal at a local shelter, help out a local food pantry, adopt a family for a holiday, or raise money for a common charity. This not only serves as a great team building opportunity by engaging in something your employees are passionate about, it also creates a positive public image for your business.
5. Free Drinks or Ice Cream
Open up the office soda machine and give out free drinks occasionally. Make arrangements on a hot summer day to have an ice cream truck stop at your business, have your employees choose their favorite item, and you pick up the tab.
6. Free Food
Announce that you’re bringing in coffee and bagels or donuts for your staff the next morning. Find out what bagel or donut is their favorite so you will have it for them. You can do the same with lunch by bringing in pizza or other take out foods.
7. Fun and Games
Put a foosball table, pool table, or air hockey table in the break room. Let people have fun with them during breaks and lunch. Challenge one of your employees once in a while (hopefully you’ll win a few games).
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