If there is one emotion that no business owner should ever want their staff to feel, it’s demoralised. It might seem like this should be low down the list; behind anger, perhaps, or sadness – but the problem with demoralisation is that it leads to those emotions eventually anyway. It’s the gateway to bad feeling, a workforce that don’t care anymore, who have given up – much to the detriment to the overall health of your business.
Even if employees have the safety net of a secure job and good benefits, it’s surprisingly easy for demoralisation to set in amongst staff. If you’re wanting to ensure everyone is in tip-top shape to keep your business ticking along, then you need to watch out for these four potential pitfalls standing in your way.
Hear The Unheard: Let Your Employees Have A Say
If your staff feel like they can’t talk to you or – worse still – if they do talk to you and you don’t listen, then it can be a harbinger of big problems. This impacts you on a business level, too; if you don’t listen to your staff, you’re on your way to being a boss who doesn’t understand the true realities of their business. For employees, that’s difficult, especially if they feel they are being overruled for no good reason.
So not only should you solicit feedback and input from even the most junior of staff members, you also have to make sure you listen to what they say and action it.
Mess Brings About Mess
Yes, it’s another business expense to employ Office Cleaning Services and it might be one you think you can skip, but think about it: do you feel comfortable working surrounded by mess? Taking a bathroom break and realising that the toilets are filthy? Never being able to find anything because the entire office is so disorganised?
Employing a cleaning company is an additional expense, but the impact it can make on the feelings of your employees makes a huge difference. If we accept the well-known saying “tidy house, tidy mind”, then why should the office be any different?
Lack Of Gratitude
A simple “thank you” can go a long way to improving the morale of an employee, even if they’ve just done something that’s part of their contracted working pattern. People need to feel acknowledged, that their contribution is not just overlooking as another cog in the wheel. If someone fetches something for you, then thank them. If they make a suggestion, even if you decide not to go with it, then thank them.
Your gratitude might not seem like much, but it will actually have a powerful impact to the person on the receiving end.
Ridiculous Rules
It’s sensible for a business to have agreed office attire and uniform codes, especially if people work in a customer-facing role. However, there are circumstances when you need to relax those rules for the sake of your employees. For example, if you normally insist that employees wear a tie, then let them go without when the mercury hits above 30C. Let people wear scarves indoors if they’re shivering in the winter. Have the rules, but don’t make them be so firm that they defy common sense.
With happier employees, your business is more likely to thrive than it ever has been before – and you can enjoy the inevitable rewards.