How to Measure Employee Morale

Maintaining positive employee morale is crucial to your business. It is important that you maintain a pleasant workplace conducive to fostering a happy workforce. Employees with low morale hamper the productivity of your organization and increase employee turnover rate. Happier employees reflect their satisfaction through higher performance and increased productivity. It is important that you gauge your employee morale periodically to ensure a smooth and profitable organizational setting. Positive employee morale ensures success for the employee as well as the company.

Instructions

1. Conduct employee morale surveys. These surveys gauge employee morale through questions designed to extract their extent of job and workplace satisfaction. Since these surveys are anonymous, employees can express their opinions and grievances freely. There are several employee morale survey services available. Ask for the survey company's qualification, experience and customer references. Some survey companies use experienced PhD researchers for the job.

2. Gauge employee morale through periodic interviews. These one-on-one interviews provide you with an opportunity to gather a specific employee's feedback on her job and gauge if she is unhappy. You can also use this opportunity to extend positive feedback for a job well done and discuss areas of improvement for employee growth.

3. Observe production quantity. A happy workforce performs better, which manifests itself in high production numbers. If you see a sharp downfall in the production rate, it may be because your employees are not happy with the job. This should be an indicator for you to examine your employee morale and initiate positive action.

4. Measure the employee turnover rate of your organization. If it is low, then it is an indicator that your employees are happy on the job. A high turnover rate should raise your suspicions. It indicates that all is not well with your employees. They may want to move to other companies for better pay or work conditions. Find out the reason and implement remedial actions as soon as possible.

5. Use absenteeism for detecting low employee morale. Happy employees do not take off from the job regularly. Conversely, unhappy employees look for reasons to not go to work.

Tips & Warnings

• Maintain an open workplace environment where employees can be honest about their work conditions. Encourage employees to come up with honest answers during team meetings and general discussions. Gauge employee feedback to detect low job morale.

References

• Infosurv: Employee Morale
• Anne Bruce: Building a High Morale Workplace
• India Study Channel: Project Report on Employee Morale

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish