Page 150 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

130 Building a High Morale Workplace

Getting Published Is a Great
Confidence Booster
To help build employee confidence and boost morale, find
venues like newspapers and trade journals to publish their stories.
Here are some tips:
• When an employee receives an award or achieves something signifi-
cant, send out a press release to the local media—and then send it
to the employee’s hometown newspaper along with his or her pic-
ture.
• Submit an employee’s unusual or special story to the local press or
an industry trade journal. For example, when an employee donated
a kidney to a fellow employee, the company contacted a local publi-
cation.The published story made everybody in the company proud
of the generous employee and pleased that the community knew
about the deed.
• Have your company take out a full-page ad in the local newspaper
to thank a list of employees for a major accomplishment and for
making the organization look good.
• Use company publications and newsletters.At H.J. Heinz, internal
publications and annual reports are used regularly to brag about
employees and even publish their poetry.

What do you think employee confidence levels were like in the
department where John Thompson worked at the Madison

Avenue ad agency? You can bet they were pretty high and that
they remained high through the years.

The Winning Formula

When you put into play the four critical driving forces that
demonstrate how much you really care about your people, the

many benefits come naturally. Listen carefully to your employ-
ees. Reward, recognize, and praise them for a job well done.
Give them honest feedback and invite, appreciate, and use
feedback from them. Help build confidence and create an envi-

ronment that nurtures a healthy self-esteem in every employee.
Then you’ve got a winning formula for high morale.