A recent report discovered that only 40 per cent of employees feel confident that the business that they work for will see the recession through to the end.  Morale is one of the most important aspects of your business that you need to keep on top on and one that can prove to be a business killer through this recession.

The survey, taken by Threshold Communications, questioned 1,000 employees.  Almost half of those questioned had a complete lack of faith in their managers.

Read on for some advice about how to keep morale as high as possible and you could find that your employees will be happier because of it.

Talk to your employees…

Taking an interest in the personal lives of your employees can’t be a bad thing.  Finding out about your employees families, hobbies and lives in general can only work in your favour and will be an invaluable aid in building loyalty between you and your employees.

The employee/employer relationship cannot be all about taking but would be more effective if the relationship was give and take – don’t treat your employees as though there’s something that you want from them.  Instead give your employee care and they will give back loyalty.

Share with your employees…

People need to know what’s going on, whether the news is good or bad.  Keeping your employees in the know will boost morale no matter what the news – whether good news or bad news you will all be going through it together.

If there is bad news that needs to be addressed then the best course of action would not be to bury the news away from employees but instead to be open about it and to talk about it – this will provide unity and again will bolster the employee’s feelings of loyalty.

The old adage ‘no news is good new’ just isn’t the case in businesses.  When people don’t know what is going on then they will undoubtedly think the worst and in most cases their predictions will be much worse than reality.

Listen to your employees…

Many businesses, even small businesses, need to turn to morale questionnaires which is a good way of gauging employee morale.

Whether formal or informal it is important that you perform regular morale checks to make sure everything is running smoothly – by simply finding out what issues are floating around the office, and fixing them, you will be making massive steps to building up employee morale.

The main thing to remember is to keep morale levels high.  If you fail to do so then you could be stabbing yourself in the foot and could eventually watch your business crumble because of it.

Remember – talk, share and listen. If you are doing these few steps then you should be going some way to solving any morale issues that are bugging your business.

However, we don’t want to see any David Brent-esque attitudes running around the office so don’t go overboard!

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