Boosting employee morale

After a tough year of cost-cutting, restructuring, wage freezes and layoffs, many companies are struggling to keep production healthy with a reduced workforce.

Stress and distractions decrease productivity. But good management strategies cultivate a healthier and more positive work environment without breaking the budget.

“In tough times, organizations can’t invest a lot of money into programs to improve employee engagement,” says Vince Marsh, senior specialist at Deloitte Canada. “Often, that’s not what people are looking for. They’re looking for a better relationship with their direct report [manager].”

Marsh says the relationship between management and employee is imperative to employee retention. “The number one reason people leave their jobs is because they can’t get along with their direct report or there’s something about their manager that makes the job difficult.”

Improving employee morale can be as simple as adjusting the way a company interacts with its people.

By offering its workforce a transparent look at the state of the business and its objectives moving forward, a company can relieve stress and encourage staff to work as a team.

Other ways to boost employee morale is by simply listening to them as people—not just employees—and demonstrating appreciation for what they contribute to the company.

 “Managers need to listen to their employees and stay engaged,” says Marsh. “The manager might hear something they don’t like, but they don’t have to react to what they hear, just listen.”

Winnipeg-based Allmar International, a supplier of architectural hardware and building products, recruited Marsh to help enhance its employee engagement strategies.

Luckily for Allmar—which employs 350 people and earns about $100 million in annual revenue—it wasn’t hit hard by the recession. Its order books were full and business was steady during the past year, slowing only in the summer.

Allmar has branch offices across the country, but Richard Hutchings, the firm’s CFO says the downturn was only noticeable in Alberta and BC.

But instead of reacting to the economic downturn with layoffs, Allmar used the slowdown to conduct training and improve its internal systems for when the economy bounces back.

“We wanted to improve on how we treated our employees and how we manage them,” says Richard Hutchings, CFO of Allmar. “I identified that the key factor of success for our company was attracting and retaining key talent. If I have those people, I’ll have more business.”

Hutchings says Allmar wanted to create an environment that people didn’t want to leave.

 “We needed to work on accountability and constructive interaction,” says Hutchings. “A lot of our people thought that conflict was a bad thing. We weren’t prepared to disagree with each other as we needed to in order to get better.”

People listen at different levels. Often, people are thinking their response rather than focusing on what is being communicated to them. Many people also allow their emotions to colour their viewpoint or reactions in a discussion.

“Marsh taught us how to conduct dialogue on sensitive subjects and resolve them by separating emotions from observations,” says Hutchings.

Hutchings says they identified that the executive team was too geographic and it was unclear who was accountable for covering key areas.

To remedy this, Allmar redesigned the executive team around functional areas and assigned accountability to each person.

Allmar also launched a peer recognition program, which allowed staff to nominate co-workers who demonstrate exceptional work, dedication and represent Allmar values. In a short time, nominations flooded in from across the country with personal stories of the company’s unsung heroes.  

“We decided there were a lot of people in the organization that didn’t get recognized and all the attention was going to the sales staff,” says Hutchings.

These stories were published on the company’s internal document sharing site and three employees were awarded a trip for two anywhere in North America.

“Appreciation has a powerful impact on the way people feel and it increases their wellbeing,” says Marsh. “That’s a good thing, especially when the rewards they may be used to aren’t forthcoming.”

It’s easy for people to lose sight of how important their role and contribution is to a company. Changing how managers interact with employees will impact the productivity and positivity of your workforce.