Page 137 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

Employees Want and Need a Manager Who Cares 117

Get Ready, Get Set, Get Assessing

Lois is a team leader at a cellular telephone company in St.

Louis, Missouri. For a few months, one of her most productive
employees seemed unhappy and off her game. The employee’s
low morale and lack of enthusiasm for new product promotions
and company expansion started to affect others on the team
negatively. So Lois decided to take action.

“I just figured in this competitive marketplace that she was
probably unhappy with her salary and commission structure,”
says Lois. “Some of our competitors have snatched up a few of
our people by giving them more money and perks. So before
she got a chance to give me her resignation, I thought I’d beat

her to the punch and increase her salary and commission.
Then,” says Lois, “two weeks later, she gave notice that she was
leaving and I was livid. I kept asking myself, ‘What did I miss?
What went wrong?’”

Never Assume When You Can Assess

The problem here is actually pretty simple and straightforward.
Lois made an assumption about what it would take to boost this
employee’s morale on the job. She just figured that it had to be
money. After all, what else could it be?

The lesson Lois quickly learned was that money is rarely the
reason why an employee’s morale hits bottom or why employ-
ees leave their jobs. What Lois should have done when she
became aware of the employee’s lack of motivation would have
been quick, easy, and free—she should have asked her employ-

ee what was wrong and what needed to be done to boost her
energy and morale back to normal. Had Lois done this first, she
would have discovered early on that an increase in pay or com-
mission wasn’t going to make a difference. Money wasn’t the
issue at all. Instead, she would have learned that this employee

was going through a divorce and needed a more flexible sched-
ule in order to spend more time with her children. Her top priori-
ty wasn’t money; it was balancing home and work. So she
found an environment that catered to those needs, leaving a job
that offered her more money.