Is Employee Morale Overrated?

I noticed that someone searched for my blog with, "Is employee morale overrated..."  I had to stop and think about it!  I mean that is an odd question, but yet you have to think about it.

Employee morale?  If the searcher meant a definition of morale that signified happiness or satisfaction, then yes, it could be overrated.  If the term morale was used in the classical sense of the word, as ‘espirit de corps,’ then by no means and at no time can employee morale be overrated.

The concept of morale has always been primarily a military term, but militaries are nothing more than organizations with a goal, and as such the concept of ‘espirit de corps’ applies equally to all organizations.  Of course the history of war is full of examples of armies suffering from low pay or no pay, poor rations, and horrendous working conditions, but still with high spirits achieved unbelievable results; the American Revolutionary War is a classic example.

In the workplace the key drivers of employee morale are:

• Job Security
• Management Style
• Staff feeling that their contribution is valued by their employer
• Realistic opportunities for merit-based promotion
• The perceived social or economic value of the work being done by the organization as a whole
• The perceived status of the work being done by the organization as a whole
• Team composition
• The work culture

One cannot buy morale or ‘espirt de corps’ with wages, benefits, and cafeterias with free food, or lattes at will; morale is instilled from within an organization and an individual employee.  Being a “cool” place to work is not morale, nor should weekly pizza parties be viewed as an example of team building.

 I spent three days at a printing facility recently where the plant employees work 12 hour shifts doing work that is hard physically and mentally tedious.  Were the employees ‘happy?” or were they “satisfied?”  One couldn’t really tell because there was very little communication among the employees, realistically the work was very unfulfilling and of low esteem.  But, the ‘espirit de corps’ was sky high!  They had jobs to do, tasks that had to be accomplished, and there was little to no floor management. 

Not one employee missed work or reported late.  Every employee gets a five minute break every hour, a ten minute break every two hours, and a twenty minute lunch, which are all paid and not once did anyone leave early or return late. 

Wives and husbands were actually hired together for the same shifts but not allowed to work the same lines, and that was a brilliant going against the grain in the traditional human resources management bible. 

Extraordinary effort on the part of average individuals is the true example of employee morale and it can never be overrated.

Never Let Your Employees Down

At the age of 23 I found myself at a construction camp of over 15,000 multi national inhabitants outside of Ras Tanuara, Saudi Arabia.  My superior was a 72 year old retired Marine Corp General and I worked with three other Americans who were all a minimum of 25 years older than I was; thus I was "the kid." 

We were reponsible for providing construction workers with healthcare, food, recreation, living and housekeeping accomodations, shopping, utilities, infrastructure, and of course security which we did with a work force of 600 third world nationals.

One time, and rather by surprise, I found myself in charge with our camp Engineer as support.  With a vacation schedule of two weeks every three months, there was always someone going on and or returning from a vacation out of country, there had been times when two of us were on vacation at the same time, but never had their been three and never had the other two ever taken a vacation at the same time as the camp manager.

So, I found myself behind the desk of a retired Marine Corp General; heady times for a kid!  The first thing I found on the taped to the desk and displayed under a piece of glass was a quote:  "Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill" and the next thing I found was a pile of memos from headquarters that I had to follow up on.

There I found a bombshell;  due to the fall in oil prices I had to terminate 150 employees and it would have to be accomplished before the three amigos returned!  Well, that explains why the three were in such a hurry to get out of country!

Basically, I was the one who was going to have to select 150 people out of a pool of Indian's, Pakistani's, Bangladeshi's, Sri Lankan's, Thai's, and Filipino's, people who had had to pay bribes to get the jobs they currently had and in some cases continued to pay bribes to keep the jobs they had, but I was sending them back to their homelands;  places where they would most likely never have a job again.  These employees were not only supporting their family with their wages that they sent home regularly but in some cases they were supporting entire villages; and that was coming to an end.

To fire an employee is hard, but to reduce grown men to tears, to pleading, to bribing, to throwing themselves at your feet in desparation to not be fired is an experience one never forgets.  After that experience I promised myself that I would never hire an employee unless I was for certain that I could commit to them a promise of long term employment; thus I have learned to justify a position before seeking applicants.  Everytime a position opens up I will analyze the tasks and responsibilities of the position and see if they are really necessary; we hire for the future not for the past, so any hiring decision should always be based upon a review of current practices and future business rather than an organizational chart of prior operations. 

The key to avoiding downsizing is actually not to oversize in the first place.

Remember, a business, a company, an organization, is a team; regardless of everything else, no task is ever achieved, no success is ever realized, without people working together.  Now, you can focus on finding the candidates who have the best fit inregards to skill set, or keywords, or who has the experience that best matches the position being filled but the reality is if you do not look at the whole person, and or if you do not analyze the needs of an organization beyond the tasks accomplished by a position; if you look at a job as a cog, a wheel, or an organization as a machine, then you are going to find yourself hosting seminars and or providing training in an attempt to bring your organization together. 

You may find yourself hiring the ideal candidate but the wrong person.  Sometimes you need to hire someone who is "overqualified" because it never hurts to challenge the others in an organization to improve their skills.  Sometimes an organization needs an older person or a younger person.  Sometimes an organization needs the perspective of someone who has been unemployed a while; the success of an organization is not only determined by what the individuals do at their desks but also what is done in the breakroom or discussed around the water cooler.  Sometimes its attitude and perspective that make a difference; sometimes you have to hire someone from outside your industry to improve an organization.

Organizations are not just the sum of keywords, or skill sets and neither are individuals.

"Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill"  

Don't confuse old age and treachery with wisdom and or expertise nor should youth and skill be confused with innovation.

How To Learn from Human Resource Data

Current white collar unemployment is at roughly 4.5%; but if you follow the news you would believe it was much worse.  If you are nearing 50 or if you have lost your job then you are sure it is much worse!

Then you read an article that states,

"Mercer, the global HR consulting firm, just released the results of its new What’s Working survey, conducted over the past two quarters among nearly 30,000 workers in 17 countries, including 2,400 workers in the U.S. It found that nearly a third (32 percent ) of American workers are seriously considering leaving their organization at the present time, up sharply from 23 percent in 2005.
As bad as that sounds, another 21 percent of workers say they are not necessarily looking to leave but view their employers unfavorably and have rock-bottom scores on key measures of engagement, meaning that when you combine the two, more than half of all employees (53 percent) are either looking to leave for a new job or have mentally checked out of their old one."

The reality just might be that these employees are bringing the grind of 24/7 cable news to work with them!  The best solution might be just to move the furniture around in the lobby/offices or paint the walls.  Or maybe copy the practices of younger companies and bring in a ping pong table or copy from Google and bring in a couple of lava lamps and set them up in the break room.

A good manager should know when they have to do something to boost morale and sometimes they have to realize that they have to do something to snap everything back in focus.  Sometimes you have to figure out a way to just let employees vent.

If you look at the statistics in the original article you realize that employees are pretty satisfied with their benefits, of course they are dissatisfied with their pay (I would love to meet the people who when asked in a survey are they paid too much, just right, or not enough respond they are paid too much or just right!), then you have the issues in regards to the "intangibles." 

When you see a study that attempts to create a hysteria around "intangibles" then you need to realize that, as an employer, you may be dealing with something you have no control over.  Lets be honest, there really isn't much news today that is positive, hopeful, and or gives one much faith in the future, and of course that is going to reflect negatively toward ones employer and or employment if that is the focus of a survey.

Sometimes all it takes is to alter the routine, doing something spontaneous or unexpected, or just a little act that is personal in nature; sometimes a little craziness makes everyone all the more sane.