Page 30 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

10 Building a High Morale Workplace

Make Your Company More of a Community,

Less of a Corporation

Thirty years ago, if you’d asked the typical manager in an
organization for a definition of morale in the workplace, the

answer may have been something like “Morale is a commitment
to the company’s objectives, controlling bottom-line expenses,
and annihilating the competition.” Pose that same question to a
manager today and you’ll likely get answers like the following:

• “Morale is the lifeblood of our organization and gives us

meaningful purpose.”
• “The level of morale in our organization tells us how suc-
cessful we really are.”
• “Morale is an attitude. It represents our determination and

fortitude.”
• “Our company’s morale tells the world who we are and
what we are all about—people!”

Obviously, different decades have different ideas about
morale in the workplace. And, as the famous author and poet

Maya Angelou says, “When you know better, you do better.” In
other words, managers today can no longer hide behind the
excuse, “We just didn’t know any better,” because we certainly
do know better.
We know that if high morale in the workplace is to survive

and thrive and if managers are going to focus on creating a bet-
ter future for their employees and their organizations, then it’s
time that managers at all levels concern themselves with nurtur-
ing a stronger sense of community within the organization.

Morale partly involves the feeling of community that you build
as a manager. It means taking your organization’s culture to the
next level and bringing lots of positive energy to the workplace.

Cultivating Community

There are several keys to cultivating community within an
organization: