Did you know that as many as 60% of people are unhappy with their jobs? If your employees are not happy with their work, your employees might decide to quit. Then, you’ll be left with the problem of having to find more employees and those might even end up unhappy with their work as well, perpetuating a cycle of unhappy workers that certainly won’t be beneficial for your business.

For that reason, it is important to understand how you can boost employee morale. Fortunately, there are many ways in which you can do this, but which ways are the most effective and worth the time and effort? Keep reading and learn more about the different ways in which you can boost employee motivation and prevent burnout.

Encourage Plenty of Employee Feedback

A problem that many employees have is that they feel that they are completely silent in the work environment. When this is the case, employees may feel that they are unappreciated and that their input doesn’t matter. This, of course, can contribute to the problem of employee dissatisfaction in the workplace.

When employees are unhappy, they will be less willing to do a good job at their work because they feel that what they do doesn’t actually matter. Some people may even slack off for that same reason. Another problem is that some people may become so unhappy with their job that they may decide to quit.

There is also the trend of “quiet quitting.” This is when employees do only the bare minimum to keep their job, hoping to get fired after enough time of slacking off. None of these scenarios, of course, are good for business.

If your employees are unmotivated, unhappy, and only doing the bare minimum, this is going to lead to a loss of quality and production on behalf of your company. Even if you hire new employees, there is no telling that they won’t fall into the same issue of employee dissatisfaction. One of the main ways you can prevent this is by encouraging plenty of employee feedback.

The Details

Employee feedback allows your workers to voice their opinions and have a chance to change something about the work environment. Simply by giving your employees a chance to voice their feedback, they will automatically feel more appreciated and heard rather than invisible. Making a few changes to the work environment can also boost the morale of your employees.

This is because this will allow the employees to feel that their words indeed do matter and they can make changes. These changes don’t even have to be very large to amount to a big boost in morale. Sometimes, all you need to do is listen to an employee’s request to get a new printer or a new tool to make their job a bit easier.

Once you give employees the option of giving feedback, you will find that employees will be far more content at their jobs. However, this is, of course, only one of many ways you can boost employee morale, and sometimes you need to use methods that are even more substantial.

Awards for Employee Achievement and Recognition

It is part of basic human nature to seek achievement and recognition. If your employees aren’t getting any of those things, they may soon become miserable with their jobs. And, of course, miserable employees will not be very productive and they won’t produce high-quality results either.

After all, if you worked hard all day, every day, with hardly anything in return, you likely wouldn’t feel very motivated to keep up the hard work. Instead, you would be far more likely to start slacking off since your work isn’t being recognized in the first place. This is often the case with many employees, especially those that work at large corporations that have hundreds and even thousands of workers.

However, just because there are a lot of workers to deal with doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t still be appreciated and rewarded for their hard work. One of the best ways you can appreciate an employee’s work is to give them an award. There are many types of corporate awards to choose from.

A trophy is one of the most classic examples of awards for employee achievement. Awards are seen as very special things since, after all, they are not given out very often. You can give out an award for an employee completing a certain number of years of work or for completing a very important project.

What You Need to Know

This is not to mention that there are many types of awards to choose from. Some come in the form of a typical trophy while others are made out of crystal, acrylic, and sometimes even wood. Whatever the case, an award is a clear symbol of an employee’s achievement and it can be surprisingly motivating.

As soon as an employee receives an award, they will feel that they are appreciated and valued by the company and that they are not just another invisible worker among thousands. Because they feel valued, they will feel more compelled to do a better job at work in the future because, indeed, they matter to the future of the company.

They will want to work harder so that they can continue to get the same kind of recognition and appreciation in the future. Of course, you don’t have to give out awards all the time, otherwise, these awards might lose their meaning. However, giving them out once in a while to employees who clearly work hard is a great way to give your employees a boost of morale.

Even workers who don’t get awards at first may view others with their awards and feel more motivated to get one for themselves, so as a result, they will work harder. In general, giving out employee awards will show your entire workforce the kind of appreciation they can get as long as they work hard at their jobs.

Emphasize the Importance of Mental Health for Employees

If your employees feel that they are only being used as tools to improve your company’s production, they might not feel very valued as people. While giving out awards and giving workers the opportunity to provide feedback can be quite useful, these things won’t get to the core of very unhappy employees.

Many employers don’t bother to think about the mental health of their employees, and this is often a big mistake. Various problems can affect the mental health of your employees. Stress is one of the most common problems that employees face on a daily basis, and stress may occur for a variety of reasons.

Employees may be overworked and stressed because of that. Or, they may feel stressed because they are not being appreciated as much as their peers or because they haven’t moved up the ladder in a long time. Whatever the case, constant work-related stress can be a serious downside for your employees.

It might make them perform less well at their job and it may slow them down. This is not to mention that stress can make workers more prone to making mistakes. Besides stress, other mental health issues may come into play.

For example, constant underappreciation and overworking can lead to the development of depression in some employees. This, of course, can also slow down employee performance and quality. For that reason, it is very important to emphasize the role of mental health in your employees.

What to Know

There are many ways in which you can help your employees improve their mental health. To start, it is important that you give your employees a good work-life balance. If your employees do nothing but work and worry about work, this is not a good work-life balance.

But once your employees have more time for themselves, they can focus more on work when it is time to work. Improving this balance will make it easier for your employees to relax rather than be constantly stressed about their job. The more relaxed and content your employees feel on a daily basis, the more productive and efficient they will be.

This is not to mention that putting more of an emphasis on mental health can help reduce employee burnout. Employee burnout is something that no employer ever wants to deal with. Once an employee starts to feel burned out at their job, they may start to do only the bare minimum at work and they may no longer care about the quality of their work because all they want to do is finish up and go home.

But again, bringing in a healthy work-life balance can keep this dreaded burnout at bay. Besides that, it can make employees have a more favorable outlook on their job. Since their jobs won’t cause them as much stress as before, they may feel more motivated to do a good job at work and work hard.

This is because they know they will still be able to enjoy plenty of time away from work once it’s time to leave.

Consider Giving Out Plaques and Metals

We have already seen the benefits of giving out awards and trophies to your employees. An award is a great way to show particular employees that they matter and that they are doing a good job. Through this show of appreciation, employees will feel more motivated to do a better job at work.

They will also feel more recognized and that their work actually matters. Giving out medals and plaques can produce similar results. These are simply other types of awards, but they can provide different reactions among your employees, depending on what the plaques and metals are for.

Plaques are arguably one of the most popular types of employee awards out there. After all, they are easy to make and they clearly state what the employee is being awarded for. This is not to mention that it is easy for the employee to hang the plaque up on a wall or prop it against something for everyone to see.

The Details

Plaques can give your employees a certain pride in their work that other morale-boosting strategies are not able to do. After all, a plaque is something that an employee can admire and look back on their achievements at work. This is not to mention that some employees may even achieve several different plaques.

You can use plaques and metals as a sort of work incentive for your employees. Incentives are always important for motivating your employees. After all, if you never use any incentives, your employees may feel that they are working hard and getting nothing in return. But by motivating them with certain rewards like plaques or medals, they will be far more motivated to hit certain deadlines and certain quotas.

When combined with the other morale-boosting strategies mentioned before, these plaques and metals can do a lot of good for your workers. As long as your workers feel appreciated and heard in the workplace, they will naturally feel more inclined to give back to your company and work hard as a result.

All About Boosting Employee Morale

Employee morale is more important than you might expect. If your employees are unhappy with their jobs, they won’t care about doing a good job or working hard. But if you provide incentives and make your employees feel more appreciated, they will be more motivated to work hard.

To learn more about it, check out the employee awards we have to offer here.