7 Ways To Boost Office Morale In Your Company

When office morale is low, everyone suffers. A bright and motivated workforce will get far more work done and do it to a much higher standard than if they hate the idea of coming into work. Many employers assume that the only way to boost morale is to give pay raises and bonuses, but actually there are many brilliant ways to do it without having to spend money. Here are seven smart ways to boost office morale from Dakota Murphey, using data from staff management software specialist Planday.

Encourage Staff To Take Lunch Breaks

According to research by Ipsos Mori and MasterCard, around 70 per cent of office workers don’t leave their workplace to have lunch. And while some take the concept of an hour for lunch for granted, it may be surprising to learn that just 17 per cent of workers in the UK enjoy an hour for their lunch break.

It isn’t good for morale to be spending your entire working day at your desk and even if this sounds like it would be useful for the productivity of the company, it can have terrible long term effects. So make sure that you encourage staff to take proper office lunch breaks – they need to get away from their desk, even just to go for a walk. This will help to break up the day and improve morale.

Provide Additional Holiday

There is growing support for the idea of 6-hour working days or even 4-day working weeks, with the rationale that staff working shorter hours will be more motivated and productive. If you’re not quite ready for that drastic step it might be worth considering offer some additional paid holiday to staff instead. One interesting idea is offering staff members a full paid day off on their birthday in addition to the normal holiday allocation. It’s just another little thing that show staff that you are thinking about them.

Offer Flexible Working

Flexible working won’t suit everyone, but it can be a hugely beneficial thing to offer members of staff if they have other commitments to work around. If you work in the sort of industry that doesn’t require regimented 9 to 5:30 working hours, then it can make a lot of sense to give your team the option to spread their working week out.

Regularly Break Up The ‘Ordinary’

Morale can begin to slip drastically if everyone in the office gets into a dull routine. Try to ensure that there are plenty of different things going on at the office to break things up – this could include anything from organizing for a member of the team to bring a pet to work (a dog in the office does wonders for morale) to lunch break walks and even swapping up the tea round!

Organize Team Days Out

One important way to increase morale is to encourage a better team atmosphere. When staff feel like they are working together with people that they like it can be fantastic for their motivation. A smart way to build camaraderie is to organize team days out where staff can bond and enjoy fun activities together away from the office. It’s a good idea to give your team the chance to choose what they would like to do on their day out too.

Offer Career-Advancing Training

Another way to increase the motivation and morale of staff is to provide them with training. Not the sort of training that repeats the tasks of their back to them, but genuinely useful training, providing them with new and useful skills. This is the kind of knowledge base software that can be viewed as extremely useful by staff – especially millennials. This not only provides you with higher skilled workers, but they will also show gratitude to you for the opportunities to advance themselves.

Give Responsibility

Another important idea is to start giving staff responsibility. When members of the team feel like they have no real stake in the business then don’t always give their all. It can be far easier to motivate yourself to do a brilliant job if you have been delegated the responsibility. All staff want to feel like their contribution to the work makes a difference, so the last thing you need is for them to feel entirely replaceable.