Secrets of Effective Management #15 – How to Boost Morale

Low morale happens.  Sometimes, in the course of business, your subordinates’ spirits may become a bit low.  Although it is easy to attribute such occurrences to frequent layoffs and oppressive work conditions, it is best to attribute it to poor business conditions.  After all, if things are going great for the organization it must be because you, the manager, are doing a great job.  When the organization is doing poorly, however, it is inevitably because of outside factors such as a poor economy or a toughening competitive environment.  Still, it is well known that demoralized employees don’t work as effectively.  What should you do about it?

Low morale can sometimes be a problem.  Whatever the cause, it is a good idea to take steps to boost morale when it becomes too low, as it may lead to increased turnover and the exit of your best-trained workers, which can cause you problems.  You must be careful not to lose the lackeys and scapegoats you have cultivated in the work force, as they protect your back and can be used to take the heat off of you when things go wrong.   In any case, here are several approaches to boosting morale.

Hold a special lunch hour event for the employees.  This will show your sensitive, caring side, or at least the appearance that you have one.  Of course, you will need to hold the event when employees are not working, so an efficient approach is to hold it during the lunch hour.  Any company achievement or announcement, or any politically neutral holiday makes a good occasion.  It is also good to make attendance mandatory, as you want to make sure the positive effects of the event extend to everyone.  Serving refreshments is a good idea, but don’t provide them at your own expense (protect your budget).  Instead, make them optional to employees who pay for them, as everyone will already know that the company is struggling financially (an impression you always want to maintain, whether it’s true or not).  If you have the event catered, you might even arrange for a kickback from the caterer in advance, but don’t let the employees know about it.

Hold an after-hours or weekend event.  This is similar to the lunch event, but makes a bigger impression, is longer, and could be more expensive.  An outside-work event like this lets you decide strategically whether you want it to be easy or hard for employees to attend.  Also, by careful choice of location and time you can practically exclude whole classes of employees, those with children, for instance, or those on the night shift.  This is a good idea if you actually have to pay for the facility or refreshments. 

Make a short speech to the assembled group, at either type of gathering, and find some innocuous events to announce (or have your direct reports announce) such as promotions, new babies, and employment anniversaries.   This is expected at company-sponsored special events, so be prepared with a speech strategically chosen to say little of real importance, but to give the appearance that you are “part of the team” and care about the employees.

The following are observations of a morale-boosting talk given by a skilled manager, who was addressing low morale that had been assessed through a company employee survey:
1. Show up late.  You have more important things to attend to, and this only underlines this fact.  It establishes a context that keeps the employees in their places and minimizes the time in which you might have to actually rub elbows with your underlings. 
2. In your speech, first spend several minutes excusing your lateness.  Tell them you just came from an urgent situation that left you drained of energy.  This will decrease their expectations of you, and you can even suggest that you are frazzled and have “a short fuse”, which will dissuade them from getting too close to you, asking problematic questions, or possibly saying anything at all.
3.  Since this event was prompted by low morale, it is good to address the problem early on in your talk.  Spend a few minutes telling the employees it’s time to stop whining, and suggesting that whiners not only don’t get what they want, but may be looked on unfavorably by management in the future.  This will further reduce any willingness among the employees to answer questions.
4. Spend some time building them up by telling them what a great and accomplished group they are, whether you really think so or not. 
5. Tell the employees survey results showed that some of them thought they weren’t respected by other groups in the company or industry.  Then mention that the other groups were surveyed also, and confirmed that they didn’t respect them. 
6. End your talk with only a minute or two left for questions before the event is to end or you have to give up the meeting room.  If you absolutely have to take questions, make a show of having a subordinate write them down (a good delaying tactic if they don’t have something to write on at hand).  If you don’t want to answer a question you can always say it will be worked on in the near future.  Otherwise you can have one of your direct reports answer it. 
7. When the event is over, leave quickly to avoid any direct questions from attendees.  Avoiding questions (complaints) is a skill the best managers practice.

When it’s all done you can check this one off your list, your superiors will be pleased, and you can get back to the more pleasant, day-to-day domination of your subordinates.  If you had the bad luck to have “boost morale” appear on your annual objectives, you have completed that, turned it from a negative into a positive item in your file, and made another step towards your next promotion.

copyright 1998, 2008, Timothy F. Prosser, This line must be included in all copies

Tags: business humor, humor, improving morale, management humor