When Employee Morale Starts to Fall

One constant and never-ending battle faced by several managers and bosses is that of keeping their employees happy, not only with cash grants but also with providing the right working environment for them to feel happy when coming to work.

Malta is currently going through a rough time: the issue of the European Union - which we will be joining in two months - is something that is on everyone's mind. Are we walking into a dark, never-ending alley where we do not know what is at stake for us?

Another issue is undoubtedly the number of workers who go to work in the morning and leave their workplace with a letter saying that they have been made redundant because the company was not receiving orders from abroad and therefore the workforce had to be reduced. It is a brand new day; with workers coming home on Friday night with no job to go to on Monday morning.

It is far from easy to go home to your wife and children knowing that from then on your financial stability has vanished into thin air.

With all these problems facing Maltese families, it is rather obvious that motivation of several workers starts to fall, especially in those firms which are already finding it difficult to make ends meet and have been informing their employees about the whole process.

It is useless to deny that the unemployed person develops a feeling of powerlessness that becomes a fiercer foe as time wears on. The feeling begins when one loses a job. One's emotional and material power base has been removed. After all, money is power. Having a reason to get up and go out the door is power. Being in a position in which people are dependent on the services one renders is power.

Suddenly, one's income, motivation and influence are all gone. Furthermore, one discovers that the feeling of powerlessness is compounded when one has to conform to the demands and schedules of possible employers. The pressure of a work-oriented society combined with the relational dynamics of feelings of rejection and powerlessness pose a real danger to the emotional health of all unemployed people.

What can be done?

Many companies think that the best way to solve morale problems is to offer employees more money. However, this is not all it takes because morale problems are seldom related to money.

Financial motivation can take the form of bonuses, salary hikes and overtime or increased benefits and perks.

The main reason why employees leave an organisation or become disillusioned on the job is related to the way they are treated on a day-to-day basis at their workplace. The best job one can ever have in his life (and one which is almost impossible to have) is one where you know how you have performed each day and feel appreciated for your accomplishments that day.

The company that knows and keeps a record of the accomplishments of each of its employees and give some form of appreciation for them will not only keep its employees happy and satisfied in the workplace, but will outperform their competitors who do not have this approach towards their staff.

It must be remembered that accomplishments do not need to be rewarded with lavish gifts or perks. What they need to be rewarded with is a form of recognition that the company appreciates what the specific employee did for it that day.

While one employee may relish tickets to a concert or to the cinema, others may dislike these things and prefer weekend breaks or discount cards. Taking the time to know your employees' likes and dislikes is probably the best secret to providing the right positive reinforcement at the right time. Showing your employees that you appreciate them is a very important and effective tool to keep your employees happy.

Rewards could vary from person to person. For some it may be a fresh bouquet of flowers. For others it may be more time off work or being taken out for lunch. These things are useful to reinforce employees and acknowledge them for contributing to the success of the company.

These forms of reinforcement are morale boosters but they should be accompanied by positive reinforcement that is delivered on a daily basis. While money alone will not solve problems, delivering day-to-day positive reinforcement will. This daily reinforcement can take the form of verbal comments, hand-written notes or peer-to-peer interaction that lets fellow workers know they are valued members of the organisation.

Must you be a naturally gifted leader to inspire your employees to give their maximum on the job? Truly inspired workers will do that regardless of how much charm the manager has. The bad news is that if employees do not give their 100 per cent on the job, the business is losing money.

Businesses pay a high price if as much as 30 per cent of an uninspired employee's potential energy is left on the table, untapped.

Negativity on the workplace

Many studies have shown that nothing affects employees' morale and motivation more than persistent workplace negativity. This spreads like wild fire and certainly drains and weakens the energy and motivation of the employees of the organisation, and also diverts their attention to perform well and give their 100 per cent. Negativity on the workplace is often the result of loss of confidence and control. Knowing what people are negative about is the first step in solving the problem and this can only be achieved through constant informal meetings with your employees in order to understand the degree to which this negativity is affecting the workforce.

Negativity at the workplace may be the result of several factors. Perhaps the organisation made a decision that adversely affected the workers or perhaps the manager held a staff meeting and gave the impression that he was not interested in the staff's input. These are all things that create a negative feeling in the workplace and employees will loose interest in giving their maximum to the organisation.

One thing is certain: whatever the cause of this negativity, it is in the interest of the managers of the organisation - and even, to an extent, the staff - to immediately address the issues which seem to be causing the problems. Otherwise, like many other things in life, the problem will grow to resemble a dormant volcano - the employees will be boiling beneath the surface and all of a sudden this will erupt, causing fresh problems which add up to the ones which already exist!

The motivation of the unemployed

There is a widespread assumption that many unemployed people are avoiding employment, and that an over-generous benefit system encourages this. This may well be true. However, there is also the reality that a number of unemployed people in Malta are really trying to look for a decent job with which they can look after their families.

What is remarkable is that if one had to study the attitudes of unemployed people, they would most probably reach the opposite conclusion - the vast majority of unemployed people desperately want jobs, and are doing everything they can to get them.

If one had to look at the extent to which unemployed people are, by their attitudes and behaviour, responsible for their unemployment, what would the result be? This can be discussed in detail and opinion will surely differ. But the most common result is that for the greater part of the unemployed, unemployment motivation or the flexibility of attitudes when it comes to job search affects the time that it takes people to find work again.

It may be also interesting to look at whether unemployed people do in fact become demotivated over time and therefore require added incentives to look for work. The stereotyped 'motivation problem' is also refuted by international research. A study, published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in which long-term unemployed people in Britain, Sweden and Germany were interviewed found a similar picture in each country:

"One of the most striking features of the interviews was that no respondent can be said to have made a conscious decision in favour of an idle lifestyle. This held even for those who had suffered the least financial deprivation. There was a clear intention by all of them to return to regular employment if at all possible." (Long-term Unemployment and the Threat of Social Exclusion, Clausen et al, 1997.)

It is not the first time that the media reports on the situation at the Employment and Training Corporation. It is frequently commented that people registering on the unemployment register go to the ETC to sign covered in dust and oil, immediately raised the suspicions that they might be abusing the system. However, there are inspectors to control this. The question is whether the people who go there to sign up every week are really looking for a job and if they actually want to work.

Are these people motivated to find a job? Are they encouraged to take up one of the several lifelong learning course organised by the ETC and the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology? What is motivating these people to find a job? Is the system too generous? These are all questions, which must be answered in order to reach a conclusion on whether the unemployed in Malta are motivated to look for a job and work.