Employee Morale: Definition, Importance, How to Boost it

The conversation around employee morale has gained significant prominence recently. Slowly but surely, organisations are realising the importance of considering employee wellness, not only for maximising productivity but also for ensuring the holistic development of the workforce.

Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workplace report states that only 14% of Indian employees feel they are thriving in life, while the rest seem to be struggling or suffering. This percentage is significantly lower than the global average of 34% of employees thriving at work.

These findings emphasise the growing need to put practices in place to improve employee morale. But before you can implement practices to raise spirits, you must understand the basics and importance of employee morale and how it affects your workplace.

What is Employee Morale?

Employee morale can be defined as the overall emotional well-being of your employees, which aims for a stable mentality, job satisfaction, and a positive attitude. Collectively, it encompasses the employees’ sentiments towards their colleagues, work, workplace, and company.

Employee morale has a direct effect on productivity, loyalty, and workplace engagement. The more motivated an employee is, the sincerer their contribution to the organisation’s growth will be.

On the contrary, if an organisation has a negative culture and work ethic, the overall employee morale will drop. This will further lead to low productivity, high attrition, poor employee satisfaction, and so on.

To prevent this, the company management needs to create and promote a healthy work environment where the well-being of their employees should be the top priority.

You must be thinking that it’s easier said than done, right? Since employee morale is dependent on multiple internal and external factors, finding a universal solution can be tricky. This is where we can help!

Let’s look at effective strategies for organically boosting employee morale and seeing a noticeable difference in a short time. First, let’s understand why employee morale is an important factor.

Also, read: What is Employee Well-being?

Why is Employee Morale Important?

Employee morale is important in a workspace as it directly impacts the willingness and ability of a person to do their job. An employee with low morale will feel demotivated and unproductive and may also face physical and mental health troubles.

On the other hand, high staff morale ensures higher productivity, along with a better and more inclusive workspace culture. Motivated employees create a better impression of the workplace as well, which boosts organisational success.

Not only that, happy and healthy employees have a better quality of life, both professionally and personally. To summarise, employee morale is important as it affects:

• Quality of work: Motivated employees produce better quality of work and promote overall efficiency.

• Productivity: If you have high morale, you are more likely to be focused and productive.

• Employee satisfaction: If an employee feels valued, they will provide better service to your company and, in turn, make customers happier.

• Attrition: The higher the workplace morale, the lower the attrition rate. Organisations with wellness programmes retain employees longer, thus reducing turnover costs.

• Workplace culture: The mood and morale of your employees form the crux of workplace culture. If you can protect them, you will create a positive environment and, thus, more success.

Quick read: Employee Experience in the Workplace

Factors Affecting Employee Morale

Several factors may negatively impact employee morale, affecting the organisation’s growth and productivity. Here’s a list of the main few:

1. Lack of Clear Communication

A lack of transparency and communication between employees or between the employees and management can lead to low morale and a lack of dedication to work. To prevent this, organisations can employ various tools and strategies, such as:

• Encouraging open feedback loops
• Utilising collaboration tools and communication channels, such as project management software, messaging apps, video conferencing software, anonymous surveys, etc.
• Holding regular check-in meetings
• Practicing active listening
• Setting clear definitions of roles and responsibilities, and so on

By employing some of these strategies, companies can include employees in productive discussions and communicate work expectations clearly to avoid misunderstandings.

2. Trust Factors

Like a family, an organisation runs on trust between its members. A lack of trust in the workplace leads to conflicts and insecurities and directly impacts performance.

Trust-building activities like sports, scavenger hunts, and icebreaker games can help foster better team dynamics, enhance communication and collaboration, boost productivity, and create a more positive work culture. If your employees trust each other, there will be less conflict and higher engagement in the workplace.

3. Burnout at Work

Overworked employees can experience various physical and mental health issues, which can negatively impact their work performance. Over a sustained period, this can lead to burnout, which is a huge hit on morale and is sometimes irreversible.

4. Micromanagement or Inefficient Management

5. Lack of Appreciation and Appropriate Compensation

A lack of positive feedback and praise can seriously damage employee morale and make them reluctant to put their best foot forward the next time.

Another major factor is inadequate compensation. Employees expect and deserve appropriate compensation for their work, and the lack of it massively impacts morale.

Recommended read: 10 Ways to Boost Employee Health and Wellbeing

Signs of Low Employee Morale

To understand employee morale meaning clearly, a key step is to identify when your workforce is showing signs of low morale. Some aspects to look out for are as follows:

• Decline in performance: This includes decreased productivity, lower quality of work, lack of initiative, and missed deadlines.

• Negative attitude: Negativity in attitude can be recognised through constant cynicism, frequent complaints, and a hostile or apathetic attitude towards the company. It also includes low participation in meetings and no enthusiasm for tasks.

• High attrition: Employees resigning frequently is a direct sign of low workplace morale. This can also be felt if it becomes difficult to fill vacant positions or find valuable employees.

• Lack of collaboration: For an organisation to run smoothly, effective collaboration between employees and departments is essential. If your workforce is unwilling to work in harmony, it indicates a clear case of low employee morale.

Also, read: Top 10 Monetary and Non-Monetary Benefits to Offer Employees

6 Ways to Improve Employee Morale

1. Recognition

When you recognise your employees for their hard work and creativity, they feel more seen and heard. This makes them want to improve their performance and keeps their morale high.

Recognition can be through benefits, outings, incentives, or awards.

• Start employee recognition programs like peer nominations, work anniversaries, employee of the month, thank you notes, and so on.
• Benefits may include incentives, compensatory leaves, annual bonuses, celebratory gifts, or hampers.
• Awards also help significantly. They can be monetary prizes or badges/certificates that employees can display on their profiles.

Related read: 14 Best Employee Perks to Attract and Retain Top Talent

2. Growth Opportunities

• Promoting training and development programs
• Personalising career development plans through mentorship
• Job shadowing and rotating roles to find a better fit
• Facilitating continuous learning and development of unique skills
• Aligning employee skills with the company’s vision
• Offering cross-functional projects to gain more skills

This way, your workforce will be less likely to consider leaving you and taking their talents elsewhere.

3. Flexibility

Companies can introduce flexibility at work by offering flexible scheduling and work hours, compressed work weeks, job sharing, flexible vacation options, and more, depending on company policies and the employee’s job responsibilities.

Flexible workplaces enable employees to improve their work-life balance, reduce stress, and increase productivity. This, in turn, helps them to:

• Feel more ownership over their work
• Manage their time effectively
• Save costs
• Improve mental health

4. Work-life Balance

A good work-life balance plays a significant role in maintaining employee morale. Your employees should never feel like they have to sacrifice their interests and commitments for the benefit of your organisation.

You can incorporate work-life balance in your employees through the following ways:

• Offer flexible working hours to employees so they can choose their most productive time.
• Provide remote work or hybrid options so that employees can work from other locations if needed.
• Offer periodic breaks, decent vacation days, and sick leave options.
• Measure performance, not work hours.
• Create a supportive atmosphere with the leadership team.

People with a healthy work-life balance demonstrate better performance and dedication at work.

5. Inclusion and Diversity

Implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives demonstrates your support and recognition for employees from various cultures, ethnicities, orientations, and backgrounds. This commitment to inclusivity can significantly improve employee morale.

Here are some ways to make your workplace more inclusive:

• Diverse hiring practices
• Inclusive policies for work, promotion, and opportunities
• Anti-discrimination rules
• Unconscious bias training for employees
• Right communication perspectives without any bias

6. Health and Wellness

Companies that care about nurturing their employees’ health have a better workplace culture. This includes conducting wellness drives and providing discounted health checkups, fitness memberships, and more.

Health and wellness benefits improve employee morale by promoting their well-being, increasing productivity levels, reducing stress, and underlining the fact that the company cares about them. This leads to greater job satisfaction.

Companies can employ these benefits by:

• Assessing employee needs
• Creating fitness programs
• Offering easy access to healthcare
• Conducting wellness programs, and so on.

Onsurity offers best-in-the-market health and wellness benefits in the form of affordable healthcare, monthly subscriptions, in-app health checkups, free doctor consultations, cashless hospitalisations, discounted medicines, and much more, with flexible packages that start from a 3-person team to a medium-sized workforce.

Also, read: Top 11 Health and Wellness Gifts for Your Employees

How is Employee Morale Measured?

Organisations can apply the following methods, individually or in combination, to accurately measure staff morale:

1. Individual Meetings

One-on-one interactions can offer valuable insights into an employee’s mental and emotional well-being. Therefore, it is a good idea to conduct regular check-ins between managers and employees to assess their performance, concerns, and wellness.

2. Surveys

Surveys provide a window into what your employees think and feel.

• Pulse surveys are conducted over short intervals and assess employee engagement, satisfaction, and sentiment.
• Annual surveys are more comprehensive and cover aspects like employee engagement, compensation, management relationships, job satisfaction, etc.
• Morale-based surveys attempt to assess factors like work-life balance, team dynamics, and recognition.

3. Performance Metrics

4. Employee Relationships

Observing how your employees interact with each other is a great way to determine workplace morale. A collaborative and positive work environment indicates high morale, whereas mistrust and a lack of communication indicate low morale.

Also, read: Top 10 Employee Wellness Programs in The Workplace

Best Practices to Boost Employee Morale in the Workplace

1. Divide Work Fairly

2. Hold Regular Training

If your staff undergoes periodic training, they will be more prepared to accomplish their tasks and learn new skills, promoting career growth and productivity and keeping morale high.

3. Receive Feedback Graciously

4. Make Employees Feel Included

A study indicates that 80% of workers want to be involved in their organisation’s decision-making process, and 87% want their future employers to be transparent. By maintaining a healthy communication channel with employees and keeping them informed, you can significantly increase employee morale.

5. Hold Wellness Drives

Wellness drives, such as medical checkups, mental health seminars, recreational events, and activity days, can provide much-needed breaks to your employees and rejuvenate them for better productivity.

For instance, Onsurity provides fitness and wellness tracking benefits to individuals through plans, products, and webinars for holistic well-being.

6. Really Care

Employees are perceptive enough to recognise if all your morale-building exercises are simply geared towards getting more work done. As an employer, you must build a relationship of empathy and care with your employees. To foster this trust, offer them flexibility and an open door.

Quick read: Top 10 Employee Engagement Activities in the Office

Benefits of High Employee Morale for the Organisation

As we have reiterated earlier, high employee morale is directly connected to increased productivity and reduced turnover rates. It also leads to enhanced creativity, better customer service, and an overall positive work atmosphere.

Some other benefits of high employee morale include:

• Higher employee engagement
• More opportunities for creativity and innovation
• Better customer service and satisfaction
• More evolved work culture
• Reduced tardiness among employees
• Attracting and retaining top talent
• Better relationship with the leadership team

How Technology and Tools Can Support Employee Morale

1. Employee Engagement Platforms

Employee engagement platforms help manage and improve how employees engage at the workplace through surveys, performance analysis, recognition, and automation.

You can conduct surveys, recognise employee contributions, track tasks, analyse employee data, and execute HR activities (forms, listings, and policies) through these platforms. Some examples are Workvivo, Mo, Nectar, etc.

2. Recognition Programs

Recognition programs can be conducted to build a positive workplace culture and increase retention. Digitising these programs ensures employees get their due officially and can display badges or awards in their work profiles.

3. Wellness Programs

You can provide a host of wellness benefits for your employees, like easy access to doctor teleconsultations, discounted health checkups, discounted medicine orders, fitness tracking, and health and fitness workshops with Onsurity. This enables them to manage their physical and mental well-being effectively through digital tools.

Provide the best of healthcare resources to your team at affordable prices to create a happier and healthier workforce and increase employee satisfaction.

4. Project Management Tools

Project management tools help centralise workflows, bring multiple teams and departments on the same page, and provide an effective channel for communication, time tracking, and collaboration. Thus, they make employees’ lives easier and help them stay connected to required resources, thus boosting productivity and reducing stress.

Also, read: What are Employee Fringe Benefits?

Introducing Health and Wellness Benefits from Onsurity

Maintaining high morale among your employees can have multiple benefits for your organisation, like high productivity, a happy workforce, and a great market reputation.

In the present environment, the importance of maintaining high employee morale cannot be emphasised enough. Despite controversial views on working hours and employee benefits, ensure you stay on the side of your employees’ well-being through wellness programs and HR benefits.

Onsurity is your perfect partner in this endeavour. With customised plans, comprehensive healthcare technology, and superior customer service, we are the first choice for employee benefits.

To start your employee wellness journey, request a demo now!

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