Page 90 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

70 Building a High Morale Workplace

Stopping Bigger Problems
To keep small problems and concerns from growing, an
employee satisfaction committee can be extremely effective in
remedying low-morale on the job.
One committee member at a biotech firm in Palo Alto, California,
said that it didn’t take him long to get to the bottom of a problem
that affected employee morale:
All I did was ask and promise an update on progress, not even a
solution, just an update, and employees were happy to oblige. One
of our engineers thought that his suggestions were deemed use-
less by management.When I got to the bottom of the problem I
determined that his recent suggestions were indeed solid and
could save us all time and money. Upper management just got too
busy to handle it. I took it to the committee, the changes were
implemented that week, and the employee’s morale shot through
the roof! I really think we were on the verge of losing this guy.

reflected problems. Improvement was significant when meas-
ured the next time the company conducted the survey.

Auditing employee morale is the obvious first step managers
should take when it comes to heading off potential workplace
morale problems and dealing with employee negativity.

Top Three Negativity Invaders

One chapter can’t begin to cover all of the hundreds of things
that can undermine workplace morale—poor attitudes, mistreat-

ment of employees by management, lack of respect, cynical
and negative people, events, announcements, management
decisions, disappointments, lack of praise and rewards, and so
forth. So let’s focus on the three negativity invaders that are
most common and somehow seem to make their way into the

workplace again and again:
• Fear

• Dreaded performance reviews
• Cynical attitudes

By becoming more aware of these three, you’ll be better
equipped to deal with them head on.