BOOST PRODUCTIVITY BY BOOSTING EMPLOYEE MORALE 
By Bill Lee   

As a consultant, I find that low productivity, poor earnings, higher-than-average turnover and low employee morale frequently go hand in hand.  The higher the morale within an organization, the more fun employees perceive their work to be, and happy employees are almost invariably more productive.  When I conduct a consulting assignment, I always make it a point to measure employee morale.  On a scale of one to ten, I consider anything above seven to be high, five to seven, average, and anything below five is low.  To compete effectively, management must develop an action plan that will make workers feel that they are an integral part of the business team.  Morale doesn't usually slide into the danger zone overnight.  By the same token, it doesn't rebound overnight either.  The following nine tips I recommend are effective at slowly, but surely, turning morale around and getting it moving in the right direction:

1.  Develop the habit of treating employees just as respectfully as you would a customer; after all, your employees are your internal customers.  Replacing a good employee is no easier than replacing a high volume customer.  When management respects the dignity of all employees, morale almost invariably elevates.

2.  "Touch" each employee often.  By touch, I mean to give the employees on your team at least 15 minutes of quality time each week.  Know what's going on in their personal lives as well as in their lives at work.  After you finish talking to an employee, discipline yourself to make a few short notes.  Review those notes before you "touch" the employee again so you can ask about key areas of concern that show that you really care.  Keep a log to make sure you are not giving one employee more of your time than another.  Your people respond with renewed effort when they know that management genuinely cares for them.

3.  Have fun at work.  Look for opportunities to celebrate:  Birthdays, employment anniversaries and new production records are excellent reasons to call out for a pizza that everyone can enjoy together.  Also, make it a point to include spouses and children in company recreational activities; after all, your employees spend more hours at work than at home, so make sure that employees’ families have an opportunity to get to know each other.

4.  Have some type of in-house promotion going on at all times.  Examples:  Offer dinner for two at a local restaurant to the salesperson who achieves the highest gross margin this month, or the driver who generates the highest level of productivity.  Buy several gift certificates for a one-hour body massage at a local health club and award them to female members of your staff who have displayed an over-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty work ethic. 

5.  Encourage helpful suggestions by awarding cash to employees who make cost-cutting or productivity-gaining suggestions.  Several companies I know pay out 10% of the estimated benefit to the company.  The best ideas usually spawn from the employees closest to the action.

6.  Put together cross-departmental groups to brainstorm solutions to nagging company problems.  Employees enjoy being in on the decision-making process.  Avoid polarization between sales and operations by calling joint problem-solving meetings.  I see too many organizations doing more fire-fighting than fire prevention.

7.  Budget funds for training.  Employees feel pretty good about their company when it will invest in educational programs that help them become more valuable to the organization.  Sign employees up for training sessions put on by your trade association, the local Chamber, etc.

8.  Encourage innovation.  Don't penalize employees who are willing to take calculated risks; realize that some of them will fail.  Even the giants of industry occasionally make mistakes.  IBM overemphasized mainframes, Ford had the Edsel, and Coca Cola almost blew it really big when it switched to New Coke.

9.  Open up your books.  Don't be afraid to share your company's operational results with your people.  Include as many employees as possible in the planning process.  If they don't know the snap count, they will be forever jumping offside.
Remember Harvey Mackay's famous quote:  "You score more runs when you hit with teammates on base."
About the Author
Bill Lee is a South Carolina-based business consultant and seminar leader and author of Gross Margin: 26 Factors Affecting Your Bottom Line and 30 Ways Managers Shoot Themselves in the Foot. www.BillLeeOnLine.com