It's safe to say that the higher employee morale is, the better it is for your business. A workplace with high morale has employees who feel that they are treated fairly and valued and appreciated. Asking your employees for their input or doing a written survey is a good way to find out whether the morale in your workplace needs to be improved.
Every employer wants a high level of morale in their workplace because low morale can result in workplace problems that not only affect you and your employees, but your bottom line. There are several factors that contribute to high morale in a work environment. Employees must feel that they are:
In one study, employees were asked to rank 10 items, in order of importance, that they wanted from their jobs. Their employers were then asked to guess how they thought their employees would rank the same 10 items. The results, set out below, were surprising.
| Employees' Rank |
Item |
Employer's Rank |
| 1 | Interesting work | 5 |
| 2 | Appreciation and recognition | 8 |
| 3 | Feeling "in on things" | 10 |
| 4 | Job security | 2 |
| 5 | Good wages | 1 |
| 6 | Promotion/growth | 3 |
| 7 | Good working conditions | 4 |
| 8 | Personal loyalty | 6 |
| 9 | Tactful discipline | 7 |
| 10 | Sympathetic help with problems | 9 |
(Niebrugge, Vicki, Declining Employee Morale: Defining the Causes and Finding the Cure, NOVA Group.)
Notice that employees ranked "interesting work" as what they want most in their jobs, although their supervisors thought that the employees would rank "good wages" as the most important. In fact, "good wages" were ranked only fifth by employees.
So what do the results of this study mean? For one thing, it's good news for you, since working for a small business tends to mean employees have to wear a lot of hats and have more interesting jobs. It also means that factors such as feeling "in on things" and having their work appreciated mean a lot more to employees than you may think. While these types of perks seem easy to give to employees because they may not cost a lot, if you're interested in keeping your employees happy and productive, take these "soft issues" seriously.
It's not just about money. Some skeptics say that it's all about money and that if you pay people enough, that's all that matters when it comes to getting employees to be productive and loyal. But pay usually tends to become very important only when the employee feels his or her pay is below standard for what similar workers earn elsewhere. If your pay is in line with industry averages, chances are that your employees' job satisfaction hinges more on the "soft issues" than on the fact that they may earn a few dollars more or less than their peers.
Okay, how can you gauge employee morale? There are a couple of steps you can take to figure out whether employees are happy and what to do about it if they aren't:
Low morale may exist among your employees, but you may not realize it. There are some obvious signs that you can watch for, though, including:
Having some of these present in your business may not be indicative of a morale problem. In the case of errors in work and poor work quality, there may be training issues to address. If work quality is poor, don't make the immediate assumption that the employee hates his or her job. It's important to recognize that if an employee has not been adequately trained for the work he or she is expected to perform, morale can suffer.
In all but the worst cases — the ones where employees clearly hate their jobs — you may have to do a little research to find out if employees are unhappy and what it is they're unhappy about. Once you know, you can rectify the problem.
The simplest, most obvious way to get information about how your employees are feeling is to just ask them. Are they getting what they want out of the employment relationship or is there some gripe about working conditions that you can correct? The most obvious time to do this is if you conduct annual or semi-annual performance reviews, in the context of discussing the employee's pay raise. As a part of that process, you can bring up the issue of what the employee likes and dislikes about the job, and the general working environment.
You must recognize that workers may not always be honest with you, either because they are afraid that you, as their boss, may retaliate, or because they don't really know why they are unhappy. If you suspect that morale is a serious problem among your employees and you don't know why, you can make a point of taking one of your most trusted employees aside and asking his or her opinion. Or, you can do what some larger companies do:
Forums and surveys can be very valuable in ferreting out problems. However, we suggest that you think long and hard before taking either of these two steps, as employees will often take them as confirmation of their suspicions that something is wrong, and you'll raise their expectations as to your intention and ability to make significant improvements in their jobs. If you can't or won't deliver significant changes, they may feel even worse than before. Obviously, this is not the outcome you want!
If you suspect that morale is suffering and you have only a few employees, a written survey may make employees feel more comfortable, but it certainly won't make their comments anonymous.
Instead, you may want to arrange an individual meeting with each employee, or a group meeting at which everyone can express their concerns. If the problem lies with a particular employee, individual meetings may be most appropriate.
However, remember that employees may not feel free to speak to you or in front of other employees. You should try to make it clear that you value them enough to try to get this information, and that you are not going to hold it against them if they criticize something about their jobs.
Setting up and conducting meetings. Here are some steps to follow if you have these meetings:
The Business Tools contain a sample script for getting feedback that you can use in conducting these types of meetings. Use it to prepare for a meeting you might have or jot down parts of it on note cards to use during the meeting if you get stuck.
If you have a larger number of employees, or if you have a few employees who tend not to express themselves in meetings, a written survey or opinion poll on employees' job satisfaction may be a better option. It can be in paper or electronic format and it doesn't have to be long and involved, but it gives your employees a chance to think about what they want and to express themselves more effectively. Doing a written survey has several advantages:
If you choose to do a written survey, be sure to:
In a written survey, you'll want to keep the questions clear and easy to answer. The more difficult the survey is to complete, the less care employees will put into completing it. To simplify it, use multiple choice, true/false, and comparison questions.
Open-ended questions will allow employees to give more detail but may also make it more difficult to get a clear idea of the overall feeling on a particular issue. In small businesses, some employees may fear that you'll recognize their handwriting but will not be afraid to mark boxes or circle their choices. A mix of question types may help ensure that you get at least some response from every employee.
Studies indicate that between 10 to 30 percent of employees will be dissatisfied with their jobs at any given time. If you find that a larger number of employees are unhappy, try to find patterns in the areas of dissatisfaction.
If, on your survey, certain questions were answered in a negative fashion by most of your employees, it might be wise to start with those issues. Not only will that have the biggest effect, but you'll be pleasing the largest number of people. Again, try to follow up on the survey with some type of action within a reasonable period of time.
Keep your options open for solutions. Be creative and solicit employee input in addressing some of the problems that you decide to tackle. You might also check with other business owners to see if they have come up with any creative solutions to similar problems.
Sometimes there won't be much that you can do. For example, the consensus may be that pay is too low, but you may not be able to afford to give everyone a raise. Maybe you can look at trimming benefits and giving higher pay raises, or offering bonuses for exceptional performance. If there don't seem to be any solutions, talk with employees and explain your position. Maybe they can offer solutions or suggestions. At the very least, acknowledging them and their concerns lets employees know that you care enough to be honest with them. Don't just ignore the problem and hope that employees will forget — they rarely do. Giving them the brush-off will only damage morale more.