Keeping your staff thriving and motivated all year round can be difficult. Naturally, they will be facing different challenges, highs and lows, and getting through their personal lives as they come in and out of the workplace.
The first thing to do is acknowledge that life will move through different stages, and your job as a boss is to accept this as a reality. You can not try and make your employees robots who are constantly operating at optimum performance. You can employ different strategies to encourage this, and different ways of motivating them, but you must accept that sometimes they might need downtime, some smaller tasks, or some ‘less productive’ days. If your staff feel that you acknowledge there are other things going on in their world, and feel that you respect that, the chances are that they will feel more genuine loyalty to the business and desire to work harder when they can to achieve its goals.
The second thing to do is simultaneously acknowledge that there are specific things you can do to encourage your employees, and help inspire productivity. So in this blog post, we’re going to outline some of the key things that you can do to boost morale in the workplace.
- Measure performance through KPIs on a regular basis
Everyone likes to see their numbers improve, to feel like as they work hard, their work is improving and the workplace is aware of it. However, this needs to be done really carefully. This needs to be framed in a positive way, that encourages. If done incorrectly, it can create resentment, anxiety and a sense of inertia to working harder. This must be presented as a way to help highlight the accomplishments of the employees, rather than a micro management tool.
2. Facilitate collaboration
It’s important to give people time to work on their tasks by themselves. But, it’s also important to encourage teamwork. This can help your staff feel like they have support, and can share the weight of tasks. It will also help build strong relationships, friendships and conversation in the workplace. On top of these positive social interactions, you will help generate new ideas, concepts and problem solving skills through conversation and collaboration!
3. Conduct one-on-one staff ‘check ins’
Every few weeks, try to meet with each employee. Ask them how they are, both in work and outside of work. Ask them how they’re going with their colleagues, what tasks they’ve been enjoying, what tasks they’ve found hard. Ask if there is anything that you could do to make work more enjoyable for them, and give them the opportunity to ask questions. Dedicating time to checking in with each of your staff members will boost morale because they will recognise that you care about them, and are going out of your way to help them. In the same token, they will go out of their way to help make your business successful.
Boosting workplace morale is critical to the success of a business, and it can be achieved in many different ways. Understanding that your employees may not always be operating at 100%, but also being aware of the different strategies you can employ to help support them in optimising productivity and motivation is really important. By utilising the ideas outlined above, you should definitely see an increase in workplace morale!