How can we improve morale?

[Higgledee]

DH runs a small business; he’s had it for years. Some staff have been with him for decades, some are newer.
I work there part time.

Morale seems quite low at the moment.

Everyone has had a pay rise in the last 12 months; either because of promotion or as a pay review/cost of living adjustment.

Perks are good; holidays, flexible working, on site facilities etc.

We had a bash this summer, all paid for, that was moderately well attended.

Will a Christmas party do the trick do you think?
Or are there other perks /morale boosters that you have found work well?

If you are an employee, what would you like to happen at your place of work?

What would give you a boost? Other than a pay rise 😊

TIA

A £100 Tesco voucher might be a nice gesture. Perhaps also give them an extra day off work at Christmas.

Say this is as a thank you to everyone for their hard work this year and to support them with COLC.

Run a completely anonymous survey via an independent provider and you might find out. Usually it is workload, not being listened to, or shit management.

I never shop at Tescos so the assumption that I would want to would piss me off even more. If you are going to give a monetary gift then give cash so everyone can decide what they want to do with it themselves.

If they give cash you have to pay tax and NI, if they give a voucher you get to keep it all, but this just shows you're on a hiding to nothing with perks. The only way to improve morale is to make it a place that's nice to work in with people who are nice to work for and with.

From a PP:

If you are an employee, what would you like to happen at your place of work?
Reduction of expectations - both volume and quality of work. Stopping ridiculous restructures and reorganisations dreamt up my management that make actual work much harder and much shitter. Reduction in the number of fucking bullshit meetings - only absolutely necessary meetings, all meetings are 1hour max and must have an action point/resolution.

This x2. Plus, necessary meetings - don't keep cancelling them if you are senior, as when employees plan to make the effort to attend them and want to raise things within a group, those things don't get any help or discussion.
Also, the reorganisations and new systems etc can lead to a lot of wastage - money, projects, learning, and above all, time, if they are crap/unwelcome/ignored by senior people in practice, then thrown out for something else shiny after too short a time.

It’s interesting this has come as a surprise. In every organisation I’ve known( many) the number one issue is always communication. What that means varies- feedback/ dialogue/ feeling heard/ recognition/ etc.
visible leadership- spending time with employees and dialogue, asking for ideas/ quick fixes etc are always powerful.

Use the budget for a Christmas party for a bonus instead.

Yes to external company doing 121 sessions.

Yes to Friday afternoons off at full pay (could alternate staff wise).

Is there a clear career progression pathway in place with mentors?

John Lewis voucher can be also used at Waitrose.

How about offering birthday off without using leave allocation.

Half day off in December

@Headflip

The only way to improve morale is to make it a place that's nice to work in with people who are nice to work for and with.

Nail on the head. An extra day of holiday, a Christmas Party, a bonus, vouchers etc are just sticking plasters over a broken leg. None of that will improve moral for more than a very short time - the underlying problems are still there. They need dealing with.

The floggings will continue until morale improves.

Seriously, morale is usually one of a few things. Shit management, people not feeling respected, overload, and shit pay. Or some combination.

Most people exchange time for money, but want to feel valued while doing so. They will always know when they are being bought off with bribes.

My personal view has always been to ensure that the people are trained well enough that they could work anywhere, but treated well enough that they want to stay. I considered it a success if someone was promoted out of my team or out of the company, and continue to mentor people who I have worked with years and several companies ago.

@Higgledee I think there are some good suggestions here about how to handle it, but I would also think about how the teams are informed about strategy and direction. Do they feel part of something, or do they just come in, turn their handle, and go home without understanding how valuable their contribution is?

The best companies I have worked in made everyone feel like they were working towards a common objective, they understood what they needed to do, were confident in their ability, trusted to execute, and understood how it fitted in to long term strategy.

It only takes one person to destroy the culture. Has anyone joined or been promoted just before a culture shift. People usually start to flag because of a people issue. If you’re paying, increasing pay, promoting, and offering flexibility, my guess is a people issue.

Is there anything you’ve brushed off as small that is slowly chopping away at everyone. Someone not pulling their weight in some way, or behaving poorly in some way?

I work in a workplace behaviour consultancy and we see lots of this.

For me, yes holidays, pay, free food is great but what makes my moral good is supportive leadership, positive work culture and fairness. It can take 1 person destroy a great place to work especially when management close their eyes to it.

Events and gifts are a sticking plaster, they make a very tiny surface level difference but don’t fix the underlying problem.

You need small but consistent behaviour/culture changes that last. Find out why morale is low. Are they overworked, do they feel unempowered to make decisions, or overwhelmed with too many decisions, are they worried about economic effects on their job stability, is there an individual or group that are having a negative impact…..

Then address that, but not as a one off as a structural, embedded, consistent change that people can trust.

And if part of the reason morale is low is current cost of living/financial pressure then this might actually be part of the annswer answer. Have an honest communication with them where you say “ we know things are tight for a lot of you, we recognise how hard it can be and while we can’t fix interest rates and cost of food what we can do is take the budget we would have spent on a Xmas party and give it to you as a Xmas bonus. We don’t want to pretend Xmas isn’t happening so how about we agree a night where we all meet at the local pub for a few drinks together and maybe some chips on the way home but you can choose what you want to do with the actual money.”

It can take 1 person destroy a great place to work

Nail on the head. I've experienced it first hand. I was working in a lovely small business accountancy practice owned by two partners who were chartered accountants who basically left the staff to run/manage it themselves and were very hands-off. We didn't have a formal management structure, but all the staff were "on the same page", and the partners were very hands-off - many of the staff had been there for decades, mostly since leaving school. They took on a middle-aged part qualified accountant who breezed in and basically told everyone else they didn't know what they were doing, started trying to change things and generally became a pain in the arse. We all tried to tell the partners of the detrimental effects being caused, but they didn't seem to care. One by one, the experienced/long term staff started to leave, and still the partners didn't seem to understand/care what was happening. Within a few years, it was basically a building full of trainees who had no one to train them, as the partners kept replacing experienced/older people with school leavers. Then clients started to leave to go to other accountants as the service quality fell. From recently talking to one of the few long term staff who stayed there, it's a shadow of it's former self, with only a handful of staff (compared to around 30 when I worked there). All due to employing the wrong person, and then not realising the detrimental effect of that person!

Blame Andy Burnham's Labour, they have taken our joy away. You can't do much except hang on until 2029.

No to any survey or one to one wherever I’ve worked that’s just brought morale down even lower as most people jump to the thought that lay offs are happening.
Low morale has always been due to bad management and excessive work loads on a long term basis.
it’s very tiny stuff as well - like it’s fine for employees to be at work ten minutes early everyday - but god forbid they get stuck in traffic one day or have a puncture and ten minutes late, or only getting one day bereavement for losing a spouse, or yea you can have a 20 minute break including going to the loo in a 9+hour day…. These really kill morale especially when told to cheer up or asked what’s wrong everyone seems down?

decent pay, decent workload, treated like a human who needs food, water and a loo and even somewhere to eat the food (not in their car) a cost hook to hang up their coat and yes, an extra day off make for a happier workforce.

Stop bullshit rules like not letting people sit on the stool behind the counter.
Things like that.

Do you have an annual appraisal system in place, whereby employees can receive feedback and talk about any issues, targets, training and so on.

If they have mentioned staff are critical of each other they probably feel other team members are not pulling their weight

When you say everyone has had a pay rise is it a decent amount? Because if it's just a raise to match the rise of minimum wage it's not exactly worth getting excited over especially with the cost of living these days

The things that actually got moral boosted where I have worked were

Early finishes

Xmas bonus

At the end of the day people want their bills paid and a better work life balance

A Christmas party is absolutely not the answer, some people hate them. A meaningful bonus would be more appreciated.
A survey is a nice idea, but will it be genuinely anonymous? The answer lies in talking to people and really listening. It’s a rare manager/owner who is humble enough to take the truth, a rare employee brave enough to tell it.

Also totally agree with what others have said on here re shit managers and not feeling valued

I have also experienced one bad apple being employed and the whole team leaving