9 Ways to Boost Employee Morale

Running a successful company without getting your team members on board is challenging — if not impossible. Therefore, an ongoing effort to boost employee morale is critical to ensure that as your business grows, your team’s happiness and fulfillment can grow with it.

Plenty of studies and surveys back up this truth:

• The Harvard Business Review found that engaged employees are 45% more productive.
• An often-cited study of corporate cultures found that strong company culture can increase productivity by 4x.
• According to Gallup, disengaged employees cost American businesses more than $450 billion annually in lost productivity.

Of course, improving employee morale is not always easy. In a 2020 Society for Human Resource Management survey, 44% of business leaders reported that their employee morale had dropped partially because of remote work challenges.

These aren’t easy problems to solve, but a solution is needed regardless. So keep reading for potential solutions to strategically boost employee morale (and improve your team’s well-being).

How to boost employee morale

There is no magic solution or switch to flip that can automatically prevent employee burnout or avoid low morale. Instead, start with the first things first. To develop high employee morale, you must begin with a clearly defined company culture and inspiring company values.

With that baseline in place, the following strategies can help you improve employee engagement and boost morale.

1. Create a culture of independence and accountability

Every employee wants at least some degree of independence. Instead of being micromanaged, empower them to start and oversee initiatives. Let them take charge of their average workday.

With that independence comes accountability—reward team members who take charge of projects and complete them. Employees who aren’t meeting deadlines might need an honest evaluation and guidance to perform better next time.

Deliver feedback in a way that leads them to improve their work, leading them towards greater competence—and, therefore, greater drive and confidence in their work.

Accountability should extend to remote environments, which can be more challenging to manage. Clear guidelines for remote communications and work-from-home accountability are keys to building stronger employee morale.

2. Align your culture and values with your company mission and employees

Every company has a mission. But how well is that mission embodied by the team, from most committed employees to those who feel disconnected?

The answer to that question lies in how well your company values, culture, and mission align with your team members.

Building a mission-driven culture is key to succeeding here. Don’t just drill your values into your employees. Instead, discover their shared values, and determine how they can fit into your larger culture. People give their best work when they feel they’re a part of something meaningful.

From there, it’s about hiring employees and managers who align with what you’re about. This initiative should also extend to your remote employees, creating a more naturally positive and shared employee experience.

3. Encourage regular feedback from employees and managers

You can’t improve or even measure your workplace morale if you never ask your team members for feedback. Hearing from people at every level of your organization can significantly improve your understanding of needs, leading to insights that can ultimately boost employee productivity.

Start with a simple employee satisfaction survey. Invite people to share openly and honestly, and don’t be afraid to ask for areas where things can improve.

Then, dissect and evaluate the results. You might be able to uncover the “why” behind high turnover rates or discover previously unknown concerns in your work environment.

4. Make sure your employees’ voices are heard

While surveys are crucial, they can’t be the only place your employees can share their thoughts. Feedback tools like Officevibe can take that process further by encouraging real-time feedback in a more immersive employee experience platform.

Another vital step to take is to involve your employees in planning efforts. Open communication creates a feeling of ownership, which can boost employee morale (and, ultimately, employee retention).

Don’t forget the importance of regular check-ins with team members. Catch-up calls, one-on-ones, and stand-ups are great ways to keep lines of communication open.

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5. Create an employee recognition program

Employee appreciation is a crucial piece of boosting team morale. Show employees that their work and effort are valued. Then they will be more motivated to pay it back with higher productivity.

Recognition programs can be formal or informal. But they should share one key aspect: consistently recognizing your team’s hard work and commitment.

For example, celebrating work anniversaries can make long-time employees feel appreciated. Managers can also use the completion of project milestones as morale-building opportunities for anyone working on that project.

Hubstaff’s achievements badge feature can help companies build a recognition structure. Here at Hubstaff, we use those achievements and our internal “Hubstars” Slack channel as ways of recognizing great work.

6. Set clear and realistic goals and expectations

Do your teams always know what they should do? You might have some work to do if the answer is not an emphatic yes.

Employee engagement largely depends on each worker’s ability to understand what they can and should accomplish in a given day, week, month, and year.

If your employees don’t know what to work on or if those goals are realistic, their stress levels will increase significantly.

Take a strategic approach to both setting and managing employee expectations. Transparency and feedback about this process can go a long way toward keeping a team engaged and productive.

7. Prioritize your employees’ work-life balance

Work-life balance has become an increasingly urgent need due to recent workplace trends and global events. Remote work and high-pressure projects have caused significant mental health concerns among teams at all levels, leading to burnout and turnover.

An effort to improve your team’s work-life balance is crucial. Some simple steps any organization can take include:

• Clear guidelines around team communications, including set hours and the ability to turn off notifications
• Lunch breaks and “in-between” breaks, which encourage all employees to take time to recharge between high-focus Sprints and other work
• Increased or more flexible vacation time and fostering a culture that encourages people to take time off
• Regular opportunities for fun even while employees are clocked in, like office trivia and team virtual retreats (we love doing both at Hubstaff)

Employee feedback is, as always, necessary as you develop these strategies. Any incentive designed to increase work-life balance can only boost employee morale if actually what people want.

8. Include perks for your employees

Today’s workforce cares about much more than salary. A Glassdoor survey found that 80% of employees prefer additional benefits over a pay raise to reward performance.

Perks are a popular employee engagement strategy because they improve employee retention by creating a better work environment. Common benefits include:

• Complete health care coverage, as well as vision, dental, mental health, or pet insurance
• A wellness budget that covers gym memberships, health coaching, subscriptions to exercise apps, and more
• Regular happy hours, ideally within work hours, for a relaxed team-building atmosphere
• Professional development opportunities, including speakers, funding for additional work-related education, and more
• Budgets for continuing education, industry-standard certifications, or tuition reimbursement

9. Iterate on how to boost morale at work

Finally, you can only boost employee morale if you are able and willing to audit your team performance, employee satisfaction surveys, and other inputs. Take regular time to review your team morale metrics. Find areas to emphasize and improve. Make each iteration better and better.

Over time, this emphasis on continuous improvement allows you to learn from your mistakes. You can adapt to your employees’ needs and desires. The result is a flexible strategy that keeps your team’s needs at the forefront.

Ready to boost employee morale?

A strategic emphasis on building team morale and engagement is not easy. But it can pay off big time in the long run if you know how to approach it.

Ultimately, it’s about meeting your employees where they are. The more you understand them, the more you can adjust your culture, perks, recognition efforts, and communications with them.

But it’s also about finding the right workforce management platform. Hubstaff’s tools allow your team to work together. Build teamwork through transparent productivity measurements, better project management, and handy integrations with your favorite apps like Quickbooks, Zendesk, Slack, and more.

Ready to learn more and boost employee morale? Start your 14-day free trial today.

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