As a business owner, supervisor or manager you have the opportunity to set the tone each day for your employees/co-workers. If you don’t know it, they are looking to you to do so.
With continued surveys showing that employee morale is on a steady downward spiral we need to take a good look at what might be causing this and try to make sure we are trying to prevent it from happening in our place of employment.
Poor employee morale can be caused by a number of things, but there are a few things that rate high on the list. One of the top causes is when employers or management staff are more concerned about themselves and how they are doing than they are the welfare of the employees.
It is very difficult to work in a situation where you are on the bottom of the totem pole always having to look up at others. Day in and out working in this type of unappreciative environment where everything is about and directed to superiors will naturally cause employees to lose interest in their job and start to look elsewhere for employment.
Another big downer for employees is when employers or management are not accountable for their actions and are always passing the buck to someone else. After awhile working for someone who is like this you cannot help but lose respect for them and eventually develop a non-caring attitude about them and the job.
Next up running neck-to-neck with this last issue would be the issue of not sharing information with employees about business issues or practices that effect their job position. Such as not giving them information or enough training on how to use software properly so that they look dumb and inept. Making them to always have to go to management for help instead of training them to be independent workers. It is a terrible situation for an employee when a manger keeps them tied to their apron string just to make themselves look important and needed.
The last downer issue we will look at is the one of employers or managers who send mixed messages to the employees. Let me give you an example; employer or manager states that the policy for returned items is 14 days and then when someone comes in to return something that is has been 2 months they say it is okay to let them do it, and this is a repeated problem about multiple things.
The employee start to wonder what are the policies or are there any real policies, they never know because things are always changing on a whim. Working in this type of environment makes people feel out of control because there are no set in concrete standards or rules, which leads to confusion and disillusion.
Whether you are the business owner or a manager you do have a responsibility for the people you manage, make sure you are not leading them on that downward spiral because it will be pretty lonely at the bottom for you.
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.” –Zig Ziglar
08/05/14
Comments