An article on employee morale, on CIO.com caught my attention. Especially since we have been wrestling with the effect of low employee morale within our organisation. As the article mentions, “there are no easy fixes“, a scenario where “prevention is better than cure”! However, in the “new economy”, organisations will be faced with the issue of low employee morale at some time in their development, what should they do?
 

   “Lack of communication and bad management, or lack of confidence in management, are the two biggest causes of low morale. It doesn’t matter what the economy is like.” — Rick Chapman, CIO and chief administrative officer, Kindred Healthcare

From experiences in our organisation we have found that money, increased social interactions are not the only answer, basically high morale cannot be bought!!! Some tips mention in the article are:

    * “The first step toward fixing bad morale is acknowledging that the problem exists. The second step is realizing that it’s your responsibility to make it better.”
    * “The biggest mistake you can make is to ignore the existence of a problem or rationalize it away,”
    * “Having daily contact with staff is essential for maintaining morale”
    * “The most important tool for recognizing and combating bad morale is communication”
    * “If you shut down your training program, you’ll find that a morale problem develops very quickly,” says Tweeter’s Morrison. “Training drives IT people.”