Staff Morale has a 21% Profit Share in Your Business
Staff morale is the confidence, enthusiasm, and discipline of employees at a particular time in the workplace and it is a critical aspect of any business because when it is compromised or non-existent it significantly reduces employee engagement and productivity leading to profit seepage.
This year Donna contacted us concerned about her team. They are a small business of 17 and they managed to endure COVID-19 with the team really pulling together and supporting her and each other through what we know was an extremely difficult time. But this year she has noticed that her team don’t laugh as much, the odd person is taking more sick days than they normally would, and some cracks are showing in relationships. Basically, the staff morale has taken a hit and she doesn’t know how to help everyone come back together. She misses the old ways, and she has also noticed that her profits aren’t as great as they once were.
Engaged teams increase profitability by 21% so applying Newton’s Third Law unengaged teams result in profitability losses of 21%. Therefore, it stands to reason that great employers and business leaders value promoting great staff morale.
Low staff morale plays out in numerous ways and it will cripple a business. It affects employee attitudes, diminishes productivity, compromises workplace safety, impacts the businesses focus and compromises decision making, gnaws away at co-worker and management relationships and leads to low attendance, poor punctuality, and employee retention rates. All this hits the businesses profitability profoundly.
So, what do you do if you think your business has low morale?
Firstly, understand that employees are not the cause of low staff morale; it is the result of ‘sub-standard’ environmental, procedural, and cultural working conditions.
Secondly, understand that high moral in the workplace is critical to the success of a business. Thirdly, commit to improving staff morale and communicate this to your employees asking them to support and commit to helping you build a stronger team.
Now that you have committed to making changes there are 7 steps forward.
1. Communicate with your employees and understand the areas of concern that are affecting the morale.
2. Prioritise these from most to least concerning.
3. Develop a strategy for change.
4. Share this strategy with your teams ensuring they understand and agree with it and are willing to support it.
5. Agree upon a timeline to roll out the strategy.
6. Activate the strategy.
7. Communicate with your employees throughout the process and measure morale at every phase to monitor a positive trajectory.
Setting a place at the table for maintaining positive staff morale can be challenging but it is essential to the resilience of every business with employees and improving it is a process that will reap rewards as soon as you take the first step into it.