10 Ways To Rebuild Team Morale At Workplace

“Morale and attitude are fundamentals to success.”
― Bud Wilkinson

Team morale refers to the optimism, enthusiasm, and excitement within a group of co-workers with common business goals. It is a collection of attitudes and feelings that creates a positive working environment. People support each other to work confidently. Studies have proved that higher team morale increases employee engagement which has a clear impression on productivity.

Workplace revolution has been taking place for some time. An ideal work environment fosters high morale regularly to motivate employees to go above and beyond.

Low team morale is a reality of workplaces. Organizations go through times of low morale under various circumstances. Your real struggle, as a manager, is about what you can do to bring a difference by making a genuine impact on your team. Although employee satisfaction is hard to quantify, it needs to get measured before it turns into a problem.

Every situation is unique, so your efforts should vary. Getting started, here are ten simple ways to support your team and create a high morale work environment.

10 Tried-And-True Actions To Help Boost Team Morale

1. Lead your team to greatness:

Working together towards a shared compelling vision empowers the team towards the more significant objective. To achieve the big goals, the team needs to go beyond the present tasks and think of the big picture.

Tackling difficult situations can teach that everything is hard before it is easy. When you encourage your team to exceed its limit, it’s finally when you realize that there is hardly any limit.

2. Restore its belief in the organization:

Right from the day of joining, employees should know what you are doing as an entity and your long-term goals. Having faith in the organization encourages them to make the most use of their powers and to try new things.

3. Acknowledge their hard work:

The efforts of your team must be appreciated. Let your staff know that their hard work is making a difference even during a crisis. To encourage them to perform admirably, rewarding them for their support and extra efforts are significant.

Many times, during a recession, companies decide to go for an operational cost-cutting. In those situations, they choose to discontinue team rewards and recognition programs. According to HR experts, the continuation of such acknowledgment programs can inspire the employees to remain active even through a difficult time.

4. Learn their emotions:

Managers should remain considerably worried about team emotions. During a positive change, employees remain confident without any trust issues. On the other hand, negative emotions can lead the employees to feel mistrusted.

The sooner you involve your team in the change process, the better your team will feel more engaged in work. Interviewing them regarding their feelings on different occasions can prove to be quite helpful in the long run.

5. Incorporate more flexibility :

Flexibility at the workplace does not limit to adjustable office timings. We can consider several other factors here. Lightening the rules for your teams can help them adapt to situations to implement a change successfully.

Flexitime, work from home, job-sharing, part-time opportunities, compressed four day work week are a few options that can be allowed in a work environment. There are plenty of other ways to keep them motivated without compromising being firm and committed to the business goals.

6. Embrace honesty:

Teams work better in a transparent workplace. Loyalty and access to timely information make the team stronger. The teams expect honesty so that they can plan and protect themselves.

Communication is the best business practice in both good and bad times. If the situation demands, you must admit that you don’t have all the answers. As a sign of respect, it is essential to let your employees know the truth about the organization’s health. The sudden elimination of the workforce can bring a visible reduction in team morale.

Further, an honest discussion can also lead to new work processes involving employees who can find solutions to the problems more efficiently.

7. Re-establish its confidence:

Workplaces must ensure confidence is not lost, and that trust remains intact after a difficult time. You, as a manager, must be reliable (that what you say, you do) and be empathetic (that you care about the needs of your employees.)

It would help if you encouraged two-way communication in which feedback plays a significant role. Interestingly, findings show that the level of involvement in decision-making appears to be one factor that makes the most difference in boosting team morale.

8. Listen to what they say:

Like other essential qualities, it is equally crucial for you to look up and listen to maintain a balance in the work environment. It allows your employees to voice their opinions, which they might find difficult otherwise.

It takes tremendous patience to use practical listening skills. Still, over time you can notice the positive benefits that help in effective team building.

9. Involve the team in decision making:

Participation in the decision-making process improves workplace relationships. Nowadays, many companies are moving away from using the term ‘employees’ and adopted the concept of ‘team members’.

It makes them feel more personal yet united to get involved in the process. However, team involvement in the decision-making process is an ongoing process that proves to be a company-wide feel-good factor.

10. Develop from within:

When your employees feel a lack of room for career advancement in the workplace, it shows the turnover rate. It makes the team weaker and slowly starts disturbing the true purpose of the business.

Timely internal training and other fun activities can improve employee morale and create more good times to learn and grow in the workplace.

Key Takeaways:

1. Allow your team to do the best of what it can do without a hindrance.
2. Accept your employees' mistakes as a part of the process.
3. Make sure they have everything they need to be successful.
4. Please encourage them to take chances.
5. Be available to resolve queries.
6. Let them lead the day-to-day stuff.

Conclusion

Suppose you notice a decrease in energy and excitement among your team. In that case, you might be going wrong with your motivational skills. Keeping the team morale high is undoubtedly one of the keys to increased productivity, but figuring out how to do post-crisis can be challenging.

There is no big magic to keep the workplace active and exciting. The above proven simple tricks can improve team morale in virtually any situation.

This article is written by Susmita Sarma, a digital marketer at Vantage Circle. She was involved with media relations before shifting her interest in research and creative writing. Apart from being a classical music buff, she keeps a keen interest in anchoring and cooking. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com