Improve Team Morale With These 5 Easy Methods

Team morale is a massively important element of motivation and is also a key driver of productivity. If you can manage the morale of your team effectively, you can help them produce results in a way that will be as fulfilling for them as it is for you. Different team members with different personalities in different roles will respond to some morale-boosting tips better than others, so please don’t use this guide as a checklist. Be selective, and tailor your strategy to which you think your subordinate or team members would love.

1. Keep employees informed to tackle ‘them and us’ attitude

The retail industry (among many others) suffer from a ‘them and us’ culture, where employees increasingly see management as standing against them. This culture explains the high absenteeism, shocking employee turnover and extreme demoralisation that some retail giants (See: Walmart) suffer from. A communication defficiency between the organisational layers is the main cause of this problem. Elect to be up-front with employees, discussing problems and storms on the horizon as they’re discovered, and not after decisions have been made.

2. Explain the value and benefit to the business they’re creating

A workers morale is derived from the value they believe they’re creating. In this way, a director of a multinational corporation will have a serious morale surplus! However, a cashier at a fast food chain may not feel as well-endowed. Naturally, these grass-root positions in organisations still create plenty of value for the company though, and it pays to remind their occupants of this fact. A manager could, for example  let a cashier see how many sales they’ve put through the till that week. It will likely be an impressive figure reaching into four digits for a full-time employee, and may let them impress themselves!

3. Deliver proper training

When your employees are being trained, are they simply thrown in front of a TV and told to sit through a dull and dated video? Or do they get to be coached one-on-one by a consultant, and put through a personalised and well-tailored training programme? A thorough and professional training scheme will fill employees with a sense of empowerment and self-respect. The thought that a company is investing time and expenses into developing their skills will remarkably improve their morale. For existing employees, consider a 2-day training excursion to refresh competencies and update their knowledge with recent market/company changes.

Training schemes are often out of the control of operational manager, and are ‘slotted into’ the induction programme by senior HR managers. However, if you’re in a small company, you may have sizeable influence over the structure of these training programmes. When it comes to budgets and spending, hotel & travel costs will quickly become astronomical if you choose a distant venue. My advice is to hire a local venue that will take employees out of their workplace, but will not require overnight accomodation. This is the key to receive value for money on training programmes, and will allow you to spend more on top quality talent to train your staff!

4. Consider worker’s outside lives by being flexible

Employees flex their lifestyles to fit their jobs with mixed success. Some people, especially young, single professionals manage to get by fine. However those with many responsibilities, including looking after family simply loose a grip on a sensible balance between fun & meaningful activities, and their career. Employ these ‘common sense’ policies into effect today, to create a positive change:

• Allow reasonable personal calls to be made during working hours.
• Use your discretion in allowing employees to leave earlier or arrive later than normal, with the understanding that the hours will be made up later.
• Put money torwards a medical treatment for a parent’s sick child.

5. Treats and team building exercises

I’d describe treats and team building days as ‘expensive and reliable’. Whether you see them as reliable or not, will depend on what you expect to get from them. If you expect a white-water-rafting day to cohesively give your organisation a firm sense of direction, then you probably need to take your head out of the glossy brochure. If however, you would like to encourage positive behaviour you’ve seen recently, and allow a disjointed, new team a little room to gel as a productive unit, then you could be making a wise investment.

6. Suggestion schemes (for large companies with many employees per manager/shop)

The notion that suggestion boxes are somewhat impersonal is a catastrophic understatement. Suggestion boxes are completely impersonal, and don’t directly help the relationship between management and employees. The cloak of anonymity can encourage people to be reckless, hurtful and careless with what they say.

Question: Why did these old-fashioned boxes make it on my list?

Answer: Because they actually work.

Indeed, despite what I’ve said; suggestion boxes do their job rather well. They’re not there to let employees vent anger, or for managers to gleefully ignore. They’re there to take a poll of employee sentiment, feelings, and pick up some of their ideas. I want you to think about the revolutionary (pun intended) element of the 360 feedback exercise. The key element is that you also get feedback from those beneath you, and a suggestion box is a simple way to do this that has been around a long time before such buzz words were ever printed. You need to be disciplined to encourage the use of a suggestion box. You must not let positive comments fill your ego, nor let the angry or hateful words trash your whole strategy. Gather plenty of responses about the exact topic in question, (be sure to ask for constructive ideas alongside any comments) and sit down in a professional fashion and see what you can incorporate into the working environment.

Expert™ Tip: Don’t look up for support

The green flag from a board of directors to go crazy with employee entertainment and training budgets is an recurring fantasy, but don’t hope for it. Don’t resent those ‘fat cats’ for not even supporting a practical, cheap and (in your opinion) worthwhile training project. Instead, become a manager that others will respect. In the face of an old fashioned and top-heavy corporate culture, make your own success in building morale.

You don’t need permission from your boss to tell Jessica how well hard you know she worked last saturday. You don’t need a dual-sign off on a anniversary card to give to an intern graduate you recruited precisely 1 year ago. Morale comes from the heart, and no board member, no chairman and certainly no accountant can stop you in leading your team to new highs of morale.

To Your Success in Achieving Higher Morale!

Simon Oates ~ Leadership Expert

Leadership Courses

Leadership Courses form a substantial part of modern leadership development strategies. A leadership course can be defined as a “prescribed learning programme followed by applicants under the supervision of a leadership organisation”.

There are several categories of leadership courses, and I will attempt to classify and document all types here.

1. One-on-One leadership coaching

Leadership coaching will often follow a standard leadership model used by the consultant on several clients. Personal leadership coaching is in my opinion the best quality of leadership course available. The tutoring will be 100% tailored to your needs, your performance, and your feedback will be extremely detailed and relevant. Visit our Leadership Coaching page for more information.

2. Industry-standard leadership courses.

Each large industry will have its own officially recognised leadership qualifications. In the education sector, there is the ‘Leading from the Middle’, ‘Leadership Pathways‘ and ‘National Professional Qualification for Headship’. In the health sector, each NHS Trust offers a range of leadership development programmes as detailed here for one trust as an example.

3. Leadership-related degrees.

Leadership diplomas and Online Leadership Degrees are available in two very different forms:

3.1 Leadership Bachelor Degrees

Foundation Degrees in leadership and management are available at practically every University in the UK that offers modular management learning opportunities. This campus-based learning offers a theory based approach to leadership, and is often taught in lectures or by self-reading.

3.2 Leadership Degrees Online

Leadership degrees online can be sourced from a variety of providers, however it is often difficult assessing which providers and genuine bone fide Universities with official rights to confer letters after your name (e.g. Bsc (Hons)). More information relating to these degrees, how to pick the cream of crops, and how to avoid being scammed, is on our Online Leadership Courses page.

4. Leadership Classes

Leadership classes are usually undertaken outside of the work environment, privately in the employees own time. For this reason, it is important that these tools and courses are affordable, and out of this necessity came leadership classes, with several participants engaging in the same course. This helps to reduce fees and also provides a great learning environment. Visit our Leadership Classes page for more information. An example of a leadership class is the Next Generation Leadership Programme.

5. Leadership Books.

Right at the extreme of the leadership courses definition sits leadership books that offer a structured method to improving your leadership skills.

Advice on Leadership Courses

It is crucial that you match the cost, time frame, official recognition and effectiveness of these solutions to your precise needs. A misjudgement on which type of leadership course is relevant, could cost you £1000s in unnecessary fees, or could set you back a year in your career progression. So make your decision carefully, and consult those around you, especially your manager, counselor or HR expert.

Leadership Pathways – A Worthwhile Course?

Define Leadership

I often get emails asking me for a comprehensive leadership definition. Leadership is such a vast subject that encompasses so many areas of our being, and is so subjective – I have decided to offer up several definitions of leadership from various sources on this page.

Martin Chemers ~Social Psychologist

“Leadership is the process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”.

Martin Chemers is a thought leader in the world of leadership, and has published a book entitled ‘An Integrative Theory Of Leadership‘.

Donald Clark ~ Consultant and trainer

“Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership attributes, such as beliefs, values, ethics, character, knowledge, and skills. Although your position as a manager or supervisor gives you the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives in the organization, this power does not make you a leader, it simply makes you the boss. Leadership differs in that it makes the followers want to achieve high goals, rather than simply bossing people around.”

Don Clark blogs about learning for professionals at The Learning Ciruits Blog

Edi Kurnik ~ Blogger at Define Leadership.

“Leadership is a process of leading people in the right direction in order to achieve goals. Leaders apply leadership attributes such as values, knowledge and skills to implement this process in any organization.”

So there you have it. 3 definitions from 3 different viewpoints. Do you have a different way to define leadership? If so, leave a comment below, and your definition may even be merged into the article for the world to read!

Simon Oates ~ Leadership Expert