inluminent

This last paragraph in What to Do When Morale is Low from CIO is really what would make me care about morale, if I were the one running a company, or in charge of a department of employees that don’t have good morale:

Bad morale is a very real, very serious problem that demands good leadership. The first step is to acknowledge the existence of a morale problem. If you make the effort to examine your management and communication skills and address a need for improvement, morale will go up and you’ll find yourself with a loyal, resilient staff that won’t bolt for the hills once the economy improves.

You see, morale surely affects someone’s productivity, and their groups output as well, but more importantly, long term morale problems make people start looking for alternative work environments. The economy may suck right now for most people, enough to keep them from finding a way out of their current predicament… but when the economy turns around, there will be nothing that can keep your best employees around, if they’ve suffered a long term morale problem.

People spend more than 70% of their waking day at work, or at least thinking about work, unless its ‘just a job’ to them. If they don’t enjoy that 70% of their time, then you can count on them looking for an alternative, or at least listening to an offer should one fall into their lap.

Wouldn’t you rather know that your employees were enjoying their jobs, and weren’t thinking about leaving?

The rest of the article tells you what to do to improve morale, but I think you’ve got to make sure you’re committed to actually doing that, and know why you should, before you make half-hearted attempts at doing it.