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McGraw-Hill - Briefcase Books - Building a High Morale Workplace, SAMOKSZTAŁCENIE, Mcgraw-Hill [Briefcase Books]

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Business on Planet
Earth, No Longer
as We Know It
way we’ve been running our companies and managing
our employees is no more. The atrocities of September 11,
2001 accelerated an unprecedented shift in how we do business
and, more importantly, how we manage, care for, and treat the
people who work for us.
Business is still about providing great customer service,
making a superior product, and producing a healthy return on
investment for shareholders. However, to do that and succeed,
managers also have to be concerned about their employees
and their work environment. They need to know what’s
involved in creating a high morale workplace where people
actually love to go to work, really enjoy their jobs, savor the
experiences they have in those jobs, and feel pride, enthusi-
asm, self-confidence, and a strong motivation to succeed in
every project and team effort.
1
W
e have seen the end of business as usual. Simply put, the
2
Building a High Morale Workplace
Manager’s Challenge
Many managers know the importance of delving into the deeper
meaning of their organizations and their work. Business is not
just about numbers; it’s about people. Managers are realizing,
now more than ever, how much it matters for managers to be
sensitive to the people who work with them and promote a feel-
ing of community and caring. Today’s managers and supervi-
sors have the greatest challenge of their careers before them.
So what is that challenge? I would argue that it’s building
and boosting and, more specifically, sustaining morale in a
workplace that’s enveloped by anxieties over change, reorgani-
zation, loss of job security, and technology, not to mention the
stress and strain of always having to do more with less.
So this is the challenge. It’s real and it’s here. Are you up
for it?
As a leader in your organization, the choices you face are
pretty clear. If you want to get the most from your employees
(and yourself), you need to make high morale a high priority.
It’s a competitive necessity.
You need to start creating with your employees the ideal
workplace. I like to think of it as the high morale workplace of
the 21st century, a workplace that you and your fellow man-
agers and employees, all collaborating, can make happen.
A
high morale workplace
is an environment that engenders
excellence and fosters col-
laboration and a desire to
contribute, where employ-
ees feel motivated to work
hard and smart. Such
environments are shaped
by intelligent managers
who recognize the psycho-
logical and business pay-
offs of high morale.
Morale
How an indi-
vidual feels about his or
her work and the organiza-
tion. If morale is low, participation is
likely to be limited to doing what’s
required or otherwise expected.
Conversely, high morale suggests that
individuals will participate with enthu-
siasm and a sense of commitment.
Business on Planet Earth, No Longer as We Know It
3
Co-Creating a High-Performing Workplace
If you and your employees are going to co-create a high morale
workplace, then you must have esprit de corps, because morale
can exist only when people feel special. American Express has
used this strategy quite successfully with its popular slogan,
“Membership has its privileges.” One of your first steps in co-
creating a high morale environment is to establish group
identity. Whenever you
create a group identity that
makes all employees feel
good about themselves,
you’re also creating esprit
de corps. So begin by
establishing a sense of
pride and belonging
among the members of
your team. Building group
morale and building a high morale workplace go hand in hand.
Another way to bring about high morale in an organization is
to make sure employees are sufficiently trained, so they can be
confident about doing their jobs well. Be sure employees get
ongoing opportunities for training and self-directed learning
whenever possible, such as recommended reading lists, semi-
nars, group discussions, or brown-bag lunches where employ-
ees get together informally and discuss issues and solutions for
improvement within the organization or department.
Another way to build morale and promote esprit de corps is
through sharing positive experiences and feelings. One thing
you can do is initiate a voluntary “good news hour” once a
week before work begins, to allow time for employees to share
all of the good things that have happened to them on the job in
the past week.
Because you’re the manager, you significantly and directly
influence the level of morale in your organization and depart-
ment. Pay attention to your employees, show them that you
Esprit de corps
French
term for a sense of unity
and common purpose
among members of a group.With
esprit de corps, people feel special,
sharing in something important.What
high morale is to individuals, esprit de
corps is to the group.They really rein-
force one another.
4
Building a High Morale Workplace
Home Depot—A Wildly Successful,
High-Performing Organization
Five-time recipient of
Fortune
magazine’s America’s Most
Admired Retailer award, Home Depot is considered to be a wildly
successful and high-performing organization—a company that’s
enjoyed year after year of record-breaking profits and has been touted
as the largest home improvement company in the nation.
But above all, Home Depot is recognized for its positive corporate
culture, a culture that inspires employee commitment and unrelenting
morale and enthusiasm. Home Depot operates on the belief that a
company that wants to inspire a passionate commitment to taking
care of its customers must first show a passionate commitment to
taking care of its people. In other words, if you take care of the inter-
nal, the external will take care of itself.
The success of Home Depot’s positive corporate culture rests on
three important points: 1) to treat employees right at all times, 2) to
maintain a high morale atmosphere where every employee is an
“owner” in the company, not just an employee, and 3) to build a feel-
ing of family, not just among employees but throughout the communi-
ty. Home Depot shows how it cares about its people with adoption
assistance, ethics workshops, a fund that matches dollar-for-dollar
employee donations to charities, programs that inspire a diverse work-
force, and unpaid leave for up to six months for employees with seri-
ous family problems.
Home Depot’s credo: live the passion and success follows.
care about them, listen to what they have to say, and discover
how quickly you’ll be able to create an atmosphere that’s capa-
ble of surviving continuous change, stress, and fear of the
unknown. Start now and watch your environment become wild-
ly successful.
What Are You Doing to Build Morale?
The impact of morale is wide and varied. Morale directly affects
the motivation of employees and can greatly influence their
ability to perform. The attitude of your employees toward you
and the organization can make all the difference. Answer these
questions to see if you and your organization are demonstrating
Business on Planet Earth, No Longer as We Know It
5
the key characteristics and behaviors necessary to build morale:
• Are managers rewarding workers for exceeding the
expectations of their jobs? Remember the famous words
of Dallas cosmetics mogul, the late Mary Kay Ash: “The
two things that people want more than sex or money are
recognition and praise.” What have you done lately for
employees who contribute regularly to product and serv-
ice improvements or help reduce the costs of operation
without sacrificing quality?
* Are you really empowering your people? Or are you just
giving them responsibility and then telling them how to do
the job? How often do you grant workers more responsi-
bility for achieving greater performance and productivity
in their jobs? Are you giving them the authority to use
company assets to quickly satisfy customer needs?
• What do you do so employees feel safe about expressing
their differences without fear of management reprisal? Do
you review and seriously consider their grievances on a
timely basis? To maintain high morale, deal with differ-
ences as quickly as possible. The faster you settle a griev-
ance, the lower the levels of disruption and the higher the
levels of morale and employee satisfaction.
It’s been proven over and over again that the environment
Putting on the Ritz for Greater Morale
How can a company empower its employees? Take a look at
the Ritz-Carlton hotels—twice the recipient of the presti-
gious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Ritz Carlton authoriz-
es its employees to spend up to $2,000 to fix any customer’s prob-
lem—right on the spot, with no questions asked.We’re not just talking
about managers or supervisors here.We’re talking about every single
Ritz Carlton employee, from bellhop to front desk clerk, from house-
keeper to gift shop worker.The Ritz Carlton has successfully created
an exemplary model for trusting employees and empowering them to
do the right thing, which is also a great way to build their self-esteem
and morale.
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