Improving office morale is essential. Discouraged and disillusioned employees are far less productive and fail to do their best work. When your employees feel like they’re not satisfied or fulfilled at work it’s important to take note of this and your duty to change their mentality. If there’s a problem between coworkers it’s also your responsibility as a boss to resolve the issue.

It’s palpable when an office has low morale and you can literally see and feel the negative effects. There are many ways you can tell if your office has low morale and these can include:

• Increased turnover
• Failure to cooperate
• Less friendly chatting between colleagues
• No personal initiatives
• Poor performance
• Attitude problems

If you are noticing signs of some of these coming about, don’t worry. There are things you can do to boost morale in your office.

Speak to Your Staff

Getting to the root of the problem might be as simple as asking. Do regular feedback interviews with your staff. Focus them on how they are doing not how they are performing. You could even do more anonymous feedback if you’re worried they feel uncomfortable telling you about any problems face-to-face. Put out a suggestions box for them to add their own ideas.

Prospects for Current Staff

Ensure that your staff feel like they will have prospects in their career, and with your company. Try to advertise positions and hire internally. This will show them that they have a future in the company and will encourage them to work towards the goal of promotion. Talk to your employees about their plans for the future and show an interest. Give them an indication that you have taken this into account by offering them even a small project relating to their personal dreams or goals.

Acknowledge and Reward Achievement

Always praise your workers for even minor achievements and everyday things. Morale often decreases because employees don’t feel appreciated. Offer rewards and prizes for good performance. Give them something that they actually want or can use, an employer of the month certificate might not be enough. Be careful with creating competition as this might not motivate everyone and can cause jealousy.

Shake Things Up

Change the routine every once in a while if you feel things are getting a bit stagnant. This will keep things less boring. Change the time and location for meetings and style in which you do them. For more creative meetings tips see here.

Have Fun Together

Organise team building projects such as escape rooms, parties and games nights. Don’t make them too work-related, just focus on doing something fun together.

Light

Don’t leave the office dark and gloomy. If you can get a lot of natural light throughout the day then go for LED lights. There are a variety available at https://www.lepro.com/led-bay-light. These offer a bright, daylight effect while being eco-friendly as well.

Smile

Have a positive attitude yourself as this will have a contagious effect. Simply smiling at your employees will go a long way.