Page 64 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

44 Building a High Morale Workplace

10 Recommendations for Retention
• Treat employees like partners.
• Communicate objectives and expectations clearly.
• Focus on managing performance, not controlling people.
• Empower your employees—trust their judgment and common
sense.
• Take time to recognize the human needs of your people.
• Invest in your employees and encourage their personal and profes-
sional development.
• Place a premium on employee involvement, new ideas, and innova-
tive techniques.
• Celebrate mistakes by tolerating intelligent errors and experimenta-
tion.
• Keep it fun.
• Have a reward system in place.

to retain top talent and boost workplace morale. The chances
are good that departing employees will be forthcoming and

honest about their reasons for leaving, since they’re no longer
depending on you for a paycheck. You can use any information
gained through exit interviews to fight employee turnover, keep
top talent in place, and bump up workplace morale.

Talent Crashes and Burnout

Let’s face it: not every company or manager is up on what it
takes to keep employees enthusiastically performing at their
peak. Unfortunately, there are still plenty of employers out there
who are still having a hard time understanding that some of the

so-called “soft issues” really are important when it comes to
promoting high morale and developing employees to perform to
their full potential.
Even with all that we know about what employees need to
thrive, be more productive, and work better, there are thousands

of organizations that have not yet adapted to this reality. Their
managers continue to look at people as parts of a machine.
They can only associate their employees with costs, like over-
head, compensation, benefits, etc. And to make matters worse,