For a company to experience maximum profits and expand its boundaries, proper management is essential. Proper management will ensure the workforce gives their best of skills and talents to the company (Nohria, Groysberg, & Lee, 2008). Also, employees will feel more motivated and attached to their working environment. However, low employee morale results in grave concerns for an organization. Unhappy employee results in problems with employee retention, poor customer service and reduced productivity. This research paper aims at analyzing reasons for low employees’ morale and ways of coming up with effective management strategy that will ensure all employees are satisfied and happy with their work and feel incorporated in achieving the overall success for the company.
Although good incentives such as benefits, raises and employee recognition programs can boost morale in employees, when a company suffers from low morale, it is incredibly crucial to unearth the root cause. Many employees felt less motivated for the work because they were overworked, offered poor wages for the services rendered, the organization was understaffed, wasted potential in them such as talents, lack of clear guidelines hence spending too much time without knowing what is expected of them, and most importantly is the inexistence of effective and open communication strategies.
Since good employees morale is an essential requirement for any organization or business to achieve success, proper strategies must be put in place to ensure all employees are well motivated and happy with whatever job they are assigned. This can be achieved by showing them respect. By showing employees respect, managers can achieve the best results with just a little time invested in each employee. The secret is by defining their expectation, showing them respect and avoiding micromanaging (Martín Cruz, Martín Pérez & Trevilla Cantero, 2009). Morale can also be achieved by forming cordial relationships that are built on trust with the employees, nurturing creativity in employees and promoting effecting team building amongst employees. Finally, the managers must adapt to what is called “Make It Real”. This strategy is usually very simple to the extent that most managers tend to overlook it yet it is what makes the employees believe the employer or the manager is honest, genuine and practices very high levels of integrity. Unless the manager adapts this strategy, any single effort he makes towards improving employees’ morale will raise suspicion. However, any employee who adopts the “Make It Real” strategy will find it rather easy to improve the overall confidence in employees and hence enjoy benefits such as better retention, higher productivity, low cost of production and maintenance of the establishment, and happier and more satisfying workplace.
It is also crucial for the organization to encourage individual efforts by employees so that they can feel their efforts are appreciated. In cases where the company experiences financial constraints, the management can implement other performance payment strategies such as non-monetary and indirect payment strategies rather than relying on direct payment method as the only method of appreciating individual efforts. Besides, management should give employees more control. Employee’s happiness is greatly influenced by the sense of control they have over their lives.
Finally, the organization should implement a participative kind of management style since it encourages collective involvement of all the stakeholders of the organization at all levels of the organization in analyzing problems, developing strategies and executing the solutions. By adopting these strategies, the workers will be given a chance to take part in the decision-making process of the organization by taking part in activities such as determining work schedule, setting goals, and making suggestions (Lustri, Miura & Takahashi, 2007). By implementing a sense of ownership in an organization, participative management motivates employees and implants a sense of pride; increasing their productivity to attain their aims.
References
- Nohria, N., Groysberg, B., & Lee, L. (2008). Employee motivation: A powerful new model. Harvard Business Review, 86(7/8), 78.
- Martín Cruz, N., Martín Pérez, V., & Trevilla Cantero, C. (2009). The influence of employee motivation on knowledge transfer. Journal of Knowledge Management, 13(6), 478-490.
- Lustri, D., Miura, I., & Takahashi, S. (2007). Knowledge management model: practical application for competency development. The Learning Organization, 14(2), 186-202.