Page 89 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

Putting the Kibosh on Negativity 69

Morale Audit Reveals Low
Employee Satisfaction
Robert Johnson, a manager in a Detroit manufacturing plant
says,
By all appearances, morale seemed great around here. Of course,
I was going by my gut feelings until I was given a baseline of spe-
cific feedback to work from.That’s what conducting a morale
audit did for us and that’s when the fog lifted. I had no idea that a
large percentage of my workers felt that management was unin-
terested in their ongoing personal or professional development.
When I saw this, I immediately put into action a career counseling
program to help remedy those feelings.The result was improved
employee morale, which was reflected in the follow-up audit we
did six months later. I’m convinced that employee morale can and
should be measured regularly.

Any check marks in the “Occasionally” category indicate

gaps or discrepancies in the system that should be examined.
Any check marks in the “Are you kidding?” category flag seri-
ous concerns about low-employee morale in a particular area
that require immediate attention from a manager or supervisor.

What to Do When Employee Morale Starts Ailing
When an audit reveals that employee morale may be ailing,

then it’s time to call in the morale doctors.
An organization in Salt Lake City, Utah, did this when its
morale audit indicated that more than 40% of the employees felt
that their opinions didn’t count and another 43% believed that
they had little chance of being promoted into a leadership posi-
tion within the organization. So managers in the organization

decided to set up an Employee Satisfaction Committee, also
known as “morale doctors,” to help uncover employee morale
problems before they got out of hand. Management was soon
inundated with volunteers to take on the job. They selected 12

people, representing different departments, to serve on the pop-
ular committee. Their assignment? To ensure that employee
morale improved, specifically in the areas where the audit