Boosting Team Morale Amidst Crisis

As difficult as it already was in the normal set up, upholding team morale for the past two years during the pandemic has been exceptionally challenging.

For definition and a better grasp of the concept, employee morale is the attitude and satisfaction that a worker has towards and gets from their work or organization overall. This is why it’s a significant aspect in increasing performance and productivity in a company, especially in such a time where it’s only been new to a lot of people.

Remote and hybrid work models, as the majority of companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Citibank have recently implemented, are found to cause better employee productivity and engagement according to a 2021 survey of Quantum Workplace. Harvard Business Review also indicates that 62% of employees gain positive impacts from working remotely.

Reading these statistics makes it seem like there’s no particular need to worry about morale in your company, anyway: people look like they’ve been adjusting just fine! But the truth is, this is unique to every organization in every industry, and it takes committed effort and principles to fully ensure that you look after your people, and ultimately, the entire business as well.

Be wary of Zoom fatigue.

The primary response in hearing “boosting morale” is along the lines of conducting big employee events and gatherings, which is undeniably helpful. Virtual seminars, online parties, and regular team meetings will enable you and your employees to get a bigger sense of what they’ve been doing at home from time to time. Today, it’s easy to lose reason in doing, and sometimes even in being, and it’s your job to keep them in touch.

But the major mistake lies in booking their calendars with frequent, large-scale Zoom events that, despite its anticipated social benefit, would lose its appeal and necessity overtime. It is recognized that video calls are useful, dominant productivity tools, but they shouldn’t be used to an overwhelming and breaking point of overload.

A report from Wundamail Research states that 42% of people contribute nothing to video calls at all. Moreover, a study from the University of California Irvine suggests that it takes a good 25 minutes to regain concentration towards an original task after an interruption.

Zoom fatigue, low work productivity, and overall employee engagement, are just some of the major reasons why firms like Citibank and HSBC have been announcing No Zoom Days and dialing back on video calls a bit.

You don’t want people to hate your Zoom meetings. You want them to look forward to it. Giving employees enough breathing spaces and curating the right schedule to gather might just be the key to that.

Motivate trust within the workplace, and you.

Building a culture of trust is probably a staple in every organization from the start of time, but it’s a crucial thing especially when you are all away from each other. You have to be able to trust that they’re doing their jobs honestly and excellently. Likewise, the employees have to be able to trust that they’re in good hands.

As far as any good relationship goes, trust is a mutual investment. Invest in your people in all aspects and they’ll be more invested in their work, potentially arousing not only better performance, but also more honest and practical ideas to improve your operations (it comes from the point of view of the job execution itself!). To further this, make sure that you consistently promote efforts of communication and feedback that will accustom them to it so much so that they won’t refrain from giving honest opinions. In the form of subtle, short surveys or explicit, timely interviews, you’ll be able to know which of your policies actually works and doesn’t.

Automattic, the leader behind WordPress and other digital solutions, is one of the successful firms with a distributed workplace, allowing their employees to work anywhere with Wi-Fi. For a more streamlined and connected process, they document everything to give every employee an access to the thoughts behind every decision-making and whatnot, ensuring that each is updated and included.

As such, transparency in work creates a multitude of comfort among employees because they will immediately know whether they’re making the right decisions, empowering them to a stronger ownership of their job. Let them know that the company is in it for the long haul, and let them feel it through your work model and incentives.

Give priority to their health.

With an obvious nod to the health crisis that is going on, your employees have the right to take care of themselves when they need to, both physically and mentally, and you should recognize that.

This can be a discussion of finance and budgeting, but generally, and especially for large corporations, benefits and allowances should have greater a leaning to medication support and health insurance. If possible, the company should have available psychologists or therapists that can help your employees with their unique concerns, work-related or not. A faster processing of sick leaves may ease them to take a break the moment they feel the need to. Aside from taking responsibility, these practices also prevent even graver losses in the long run.

An American financial and insurance company, Voya Financial, boosted their health benefits amidst COVID-19 by partnering with Savvi Financial, a financial wellness platform, and specifically designing and creating myHealthMoney, a health savings accounts (HSA) to help their employees in healthcare and financial decision-making. Aside from relief, this also offers a sustainable way for employees to be empowered in security.

Assuring your employees that they’re taken care of in spite of the pandemic will encourage them to do better and be in the best shape while performing their work.

Last but not the least, train your managers for the set-up.

Your first-line managers are supposed to be in the know of the challenges of the virtual setting, and most importantly, of how to adapt and rise up to each without compromising work quality and relationships. Keep in mind that it’s important for them to be able to lead amid the situation in the most effective and efficient way possible, so you have to give them the right tools and chances to do so.

The online set-up might have removed the face-to-face encounters that used to be the most formal and official way to talk about things, but that doesn’t have to interfere with how each employee’s time and work are assigned, calendared, collected, and reviewed for improvements. The manager—although they usually already have their unique styles of leadership—is better fit to embody and implement the rest of the points mentioned, motivate your employees, and more.

There is no single formula to boost the morale of your team at this time, where the world is still a little upside down, but there is certainly a right one. Find the formula that works not for you, but for your employees, even more so. People adjust and they try their best, but they need as much of the help that they can get. It is your team, after all.