More Parties at Work Won’t Solve a Morale Problem
Employee morale is at an all-time low.
Productivity is way down. Those who can are choosing to work remotely as much as possible. Those who do come into the office seem dispirited, arrive late, leave early and take long lunches. Negative Glassdoor comments are increasing.
An all-hands meeting in HR results in a number of potential solutions to bring up morale, including holding a company-wide party with a dance contest, free breakfasts, happy hours, comedians at lunch, bring-your-pet-to-work days and (from a junior member of the team) raises for everybody!
Creative ideas, certainly. And they all share a common theme: addressing the symptoms of low morale.
But addressing the symptoms of a problem rarely fixes the problem itself.
Why is morale low to begin with? There could be hundreds of reasons, but taking the time and effort to find out the real causes will be well worth it.
In this case, go right to the source – the employees. Ask them what’s going on through surveys, focus groups, lunches with the boss, “fireside chats” or whatever works best for the size and geographical spread of your company. You may receive a wide range of comments, but distinct themes will emerge and those themes can be explored in more depth. The simple fact that you’re asking will be viewed positively.
“Solving problems means listening.”
~ Richard Branson
Clearly, not all problems may be solved in precisely this way, but the key lies in investigating the cause, not the effect. Finding the root cause and dealing with it will produce far more lasting solutions than putting band-aids on the symptoms.
In engineering and scientific fields, this is called root cause analysis.
RCA is “… the process of discovering the root causes of problems in order to identify appropriate solutions. RCA assumes that it is much more effective to systematically prevent and solve for underlying issues rather than just treating ad hoc symptoms and putting out fires.”
In the case of the company with low employee morale, once the root causes have been identified and dealt with appropriately, I’ll vote for the party with the dance contest to celebrate!
~ Tracey
Fundamental of the Week #19: FIX PROBLEMS AT THE SOURCE.
Address issues by discovering the root cause rather than only focusing on the symptoms or the consequences. Seek improvement by developing long-term solutions.
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