Page 38 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

18 Building a High Morale Workplace

Whole Human Beings
It’s easy for a manager to focus on the work and
neglect the workers, especially as we’re all trying to do
more with less—and faster. But when we do, we miss something vital.
Craig Newmark once commented about the people in his
Craigslist community:“These people are like me; they spend a lot of
time on their computers and rarely get to know the neighbors. Deep
down inside of us, we have a need to know people around us, to con-
nect.” What about your employees? Do they focus on their jobs and
their separate responsibilities to the detriment of their sense of com-
munity and their connections with others?

another. In that sense, it’s just like any other organization,

except that it’s in cyberspace rather than bricks and mortar.
Fans seek out Newmark to tell him how Craigslist has trans-
formed their lives by helping them connect: a musician’s got a
gig that jump-started his career, an adopted son was reunited

with his birth mother, a roommate became a spouse. Newmark
is a hero to hundreds and hundreds of strangers, because he
created a community where people can connect.
What Newmark did for strangers with his Web site you can
do for your employees with the resources at your disposal. Just

take a few moments and think about the ways in which you can
help your employees build a sense of community.

A Better Workplace Starts Here, Right Now, with You

The beginning of this chapter revealed the great changes that
each one of us is facing as managers. But that is an understate-
ment. Not only is business “not as usual” anymore, but we as

managers are “not as usual” anymore either. Corporate largesse
must be backed by every manager’s personal commitment to
developing the excellence and potential within each and every
employee, an undeniable spirit of caring, love and trust in the
people, contagious enthusiasm and real excitement, and a gen-
uine belief in a better tomorrow. This is what creating a high

morale workplace is all about. Let this first chapter mark the
start of a new beginning for you as a manager and your quest
to create a high-performing, high morale workplace.