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You may not realize the financial cost your business bears when your team members are unhappy. An effective leader knows how to check, maintain and, when necessary, improve staff morale. If you can monitor staff morale, you might be surprised at how easy it is to bring in improvements when it starts to dip. When you complete a leadership training course, you can begin to understand how to maintain high levels of morale in the workplace as part of the balance between the achievement of goals and the leadership of people.

Here are just six of the reasons why staff morale can have such an impact on the bottom line.

Improved productivity

When staff morale is high, everyone works well. Productivity in general improves when the staff love to come to work. You’ll find that some people will arrive early or stay late without expecting rewards, just because they love being at work and enjoy the tasks. If you want an effective workplace with high levels of productivity, work towards making your staff enjoy the workplace.

Improved performance and creativity

Individuals perform better when the staff morale is high. Try holding a brainstorming meeting to solve a problem on a project when staff morale is high and you will amazed at how quickly creative solutions arrive. Hold the same meeting among a team of depressed, bored, or inattentive workers, and you will find the meeting drags on with no answer to the problem.

Reduced number of leave days

A big cost to any business is the number of leave days staff take. If your morale is low, it is easier to take a single day off instead of dragging yourself into the workplace. Positive staff morale cuts back on sick and leave days as staff enjoy the work, want to attend and are less inclined to let down the team. When someone is sick or on leave, you have to pay for the person’s leave, the replacements and the corresponding loss in productivity.

Higher attention to detail

When staff enjoy the work, people will pay attention to what they are doing. When morale is low, people are more likely to become distracted, make mistakes or work slower.

A safer workplace

People pay attention to safety rules when staff morale is higher. With less distraction and greater focus on the task at hand, accidents are generally reduced.

Increased quality of work

Finally, the work itself becomes a higher quality when people enjoy what they are doing. Staff members with high morale produce work with higher quality than staff with a low or negative morale.

How to improve staff morale

The first step in improving staff morale is to create a culture where your team understands that their well being, and morale in the workplace, is important to you as a leader.

In order to improve staff morale, you need to understand what has caused the slump in morale in the first place. Arguments between team members, supervisory actions that intimidate, or the possibility of losing a job are among the common reasons why staff will drop. A heavy workload or feeling unappreciated are other reasons why people will leave the workplace. Listen carefully to your staff and see if you can discover the reason why morale is dropping.

So, how do you raise staff morale?

Show concern, give appropriate feedback, and be enthusiastic and genuine in your appreciation for your team. These are basic facets of leadership. However, you can go further than that. Find out what motivates the individual staff member and give rewards that match that motivation. One individual may appreciate getting an hour off, while another will want a movie ticket.

Of course, you need to know how to listen to, motivate, and show appreciation for the members of your team in order to raise staff. You can learn these skills through leadership training.

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