How to Boost Morale at Work

Learn ways to increase employee morale and, subsequently, boosting retention, engagement, and your employees’ work environment.

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So You Think You Have a Morale Problem?

You want your team to be engaged, committed, and excited about both your company and the work they’re doing. When morale is high, your employees—and, as a result, your organization—will thrive. But when morale is low, both your team and your company as a whole will struggle.

So, if you want your employees and your company to grow, you need to push employee morale to the top of your priority list.

But how, exactly, do you do that?

Let’s take a look at a few actionable strategies you can use to boost morale at work (and keep your team happy, satisfied, and engaged in the process):

Why is boosting morale so important?

First things first—before we jump into how to boost morale at work, let’s quickly touch on why boosting morale is so important, to begin with.

There are a variety of reasons why you should focus on boosting employee morale, including:

• Employee retention. When morale is high, employees tend to be satisfied with their jobs—and when employees are happy and confident at work, they’re more likely to stay at your company, allowing you to retain top talent.

• Employee engagement. High employee morale also translates to higher employee engagement—and that engagement can have a seriously positive effect on your business. According to the 2017 Gallup State of the American Workplace Report, engaged employees are 17 percent more productive, have 10 percent higher customer satisfaction metrics, and have a 41 percent lower rate of absenteeism than disengaged employees.

• Better work environment. When morale is low, and your employees aren’t satisfied at work, it’s not going to make for a happy, positive work environment. But the opposite is also true; if your team is engaged with their work and shows up every day with a positive attitude, it’s going to make for a much happier and more productive work environment.

Boosting employee morale is a must if you want to build a thriving, successful organization. But what strategies can you use to drive that morale boost—and drive the results that go along with it?

Make sure your team has what they need to succeed.

It doesn’t matter what you do to boost employee morale—if your team doesn’t have the tools, training, and structure they need to be successful in their roles, they’re not going to be happy at work.

That’s why the very first thing you need to do to drive employee morale is to make sure your employees have the basics they need to succeed. That includes:

• All the hardware and software they need to perform their job duties

• Proper onboarding and training (including training on job duties as well as training on company policies and procedures)

• A safe and supportive work environment

• A competitive compensation package

You can take a million other steps to improve employee morale—but if these essentials aren’t in place, you’re going to have a hard time keeping morale high (not to mention keeping your employees from looking for a job somewhere else). 

Ask for feedback on how to boost employee morale—and then take action.

The best strategy for figuring out how to boost employee morale at your company? Go straight to the source—and ask your employees.

But asking is only the first part of the equation. For this strategy to work, it’s not enough to ask your employees for feedback on how to boost morale; once your team tells you what they need to feel happier, more satisfied, and more engaged with their work, you need to take action.

When you not only listen to employee feedback but use it to make changes within your organization, it makes your employees feel heard—and not only can that deliver a serious boost to morale, but it can also deliver a just as serious jolt to performance; a 2018 Salesforce report found that employees who feel their voice is heard at work are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work.

Bottom line? Your employees are the most qualified people to give insights on how to improve morale within your organization. So ask them, listen to them, and take action on their feedback.

Celebrate wins.

Just like employees need to feel heard, they also need to feel recognized. According to a 2018 report from SHRM and Globoforce, human resources leaders overwhelmingly agreed that employee recognition programs drive positive results within an organization; 89 percent of the HR leaders surveyed said recognition helps with employee experience, along with driving big improvements for employee relationships (86 percent), organizational culture (85 percent), and employee engagement (84 percent).

And when all of those areas improve? So does employee morale.

Make sure you have a process in place to celebrate wins with your employees. For example, you might have a weekly all-hands meeting each week where you call out team members who went above and beyond to get the job done. Or maybe you have your managers keep a list of each employees’ contributions—and then celebrate those contributions at the employee’s annual review.

The point is, part of keeping morale high is making sure your employees feel seen for their work—so make sure you’re celebrating wins and showing your team their contributions are seen, recognized, and appreciated. Use these tips to improve employee morale—and improve your business in the process.

In Summary

Keeping morale high is essential in keeping your employees happy, satisfied, and engaged with their work. And with these tips, you have everything you need to deliver a strong boost to morale at work—and provide serious improvements to your business in the process.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there, boost your team’s morale, and watch your organization thrive as a result!