A good company is one that thinks in detail about employee engagement. Research has shown that strong employee engagement in a company can outperform competitors due to various factors, such as high quality work, increased sales and high employee retention. But how do you increase employee engagement? One of them is with morale boosters. Boosting morale can ensure employees remain productive, more motivated, collaborate with coworkers and engaged.
This article will discuss several activities that can boost employee's morale as a great way to foster team building and improve office culture.
Why is it important to boost morale?
Employees need morale boosters because they can help in increasing employee performance and engagement. If the company can boost the employee's morale, this will periodically impact business performance in a positive direction. Boosting morale must be carried out regularly in order to create a positive office culture and reduce turnover rates.
Employees who work under pressure and there is no reward or recognition from the office cause employees to want to find another place of work or to resign. Even though employees stay, they have no more motivation to improve their performance or the intention to achieve company goals.
How can you boost morale in the workplace?
Employees can experience low morale for many reasons. For example personal difficulties, disputes with coworkers, persistent work pressure, difficulties at home, lack of communication, or making mistakes at work.
Top Ways To Improve Employee Productivity
Whether it's a personal issue or a mistake made in the office, leaders must be able to raise the morale of their team members to stay focused and keep on track. Leaders can provide support by inviting them to talk, helping employees with difficulties by guiding them, or inviting employees to do fun activities at work.
12 best morale boosters for employees
Now, let's get into the best morale boosters for employees that can help optimize productivity and improve employee morale.
- Office trivia
This is a fun game that can be played both virtual or offline. Employees will feel entertained if the company holds trivia related to the office, such as "when is the work anniversary" "how many employees are in the company" or "who is the longest employee in the office". The trivia can be done by dividing into several groups, and the office can do two to three groups at once per game.
Office trivia is a thrilling game that will unite, energize and delight your team members, so that each employee knows more about their company. Employees can connect and relax, asking group mates for the right answer, while joking with others if there is a funny question.
- Short jokes
Laughter will relieve stress and increase happiness. Get all the employees together and let them tell each other short jokes and laugh together. Employees with the best jokes and make the most coworkers laugh will get a prize. Make rules to make harmless jokes and not offend coworkers. Whatever the theme of the jokes, employees ensure the methods are clean, incite laughs, and only have good feelings as a result.
- Inspirational quotes
Place posters with inspirational quotes in several corners of the office or in the office break room. By sending positive messages, you are promoting kindness, resilience, and growth. You can also share inspirational quotes in other ways, such as at the start or end of a meeting, pass hand-written notes to employees, initiate a team chant, or write phrases into your team emails. Employees need occasional encouragement, and inspirational quotes can be a reminder for them and improve their inner strength.
- Lunch together with comfort food
Sometimes employees cannot fully enjoy lunch time because they still have things to do such as sending emails to a client, calling customers, handling work problems, etc. A thank you lunch can be one of the morale boosters even though employees are in a hectic state.
Gather all employees for lunch, prepare comfort food like pizza, donuts, tacos, or employees' food of choice. Let them enjoy their lunch while socializing with each other. Even if you don't choose the healthiest foods, sometimes these dishes are giving satisfaction and delight.
- Dance party
Every employee must have stressful days that can cause tension. Some employees will feel their bodies stiff and their heads dizzy when they sit all day fixing any problems they have. A dance party can tackle these problems. Employees can take a break, choose suitable music to dance with, and order all employees to participate in the dance.
If your employees are a mix of people from different generations, you can change a few songs every few minutes. Ensure all employees enjoy the dance party, and enjoy the time. Dance can stretch a stiff body, reduce stress and boredom at work.
- Nap allowance
Not all employees have adequate rest time at their homes. Sometimes there are employees who have babies at home and have to look after their children all night long, or there are neighbors who have pets like dogs who make loud noises every night, or neighbors who play loud music half the night. These employees can experience insufficient sleep and cause less focus, and irritability.
With a nap allowance at the office, you give employees the opportunity to get extra rest outside of their rest hours. You can make a special room for employee's nap time, or let them have 3-4 hours to sleep at home. Employees who have enough rest will have higher productivity, and sharper focus.
- Recognition with applause
Recognition is always the best motivator in the office. To acknowledge employees' accomplishments and hard work, try giving employees a round of applause and reward. You can announce it at a meeting, and invite coworkers to clap and cheer. This can be a passion for coworkers to achieve the same achievements, and every employee will feel happy because their hard work is noticed.
Any clapping, cheering, choosing, or laughing can make people happier and more enthusiastic about achieving at work. Rounds of applause can be a positive culture to respect each other and encourage employees to praise coworkers.
- Corporation gift
Imagine if you were given a gift by someone, and the item is useful for you to help with your work. Corporation gifts can boost employee's morale, by providing useful items such as stationary, charging devices, clothing or cutlery. You can add a company logo to a corporation gift, as well as create awareness items when employees use that gift in public places, in their offices or at their homes.
Useful items can be a special passion for employees, and they feel proud to have items with their office logo on them.
- Virtual happy hour
Especially for remote teams, you can boost team morale by hosting a virtual happy hour. Make interesting events like icebreaker questions for team bonding purposes. Interesting conversations will boost engagement and have a laughter together. Look for other virtual activities such as online trivia, scavenger hunts, or bngo to increase the connection between team members and add to the fun in your spare time working as a team.
- Office game rooms
Games are the perfect way to reduce stress and tension for employees. Prepare a special room for board games, arcades or game cards and furnish the game room with decorations and variations such as beach balls, plushies, magazines, etc. Game rooms don't need to be expensive, because you can have cheaper choices like secondhand or old video games as nostalgic things.
For remote teams, you can use subscription games or free games online and give the virtual team a link into a game and can play multiplayer. Let the crew compete with each other to add more fun to their free time.
- Compliment tag
Kind words can be a separate encouragement for employees. A compliment from a coworker can change someone's mood and mindset. To spread positivity and cheer in a workplace, start a compliment tag game. Each employee will hand over notes containing compliments to the teammate, and the next person will give a compliment tag to another teammate until everyone gets notes.
Morale boosting, such as a compliment tag, is a way to encourage coworkers and boost their confidence by seeing their inner strength from the perspective of others.
- Snack wagon
Snacking while working can boost morale effectively. You can choose between morning or afternoon to give tasty treats to employees. Put free foods in the break room, or use a snack wagon in the form of a wheeled cart with chips, fruit, cookies, cupcakes, cans of soda, or iced coffee. Do a snack wagon once a week or more often, to encourage employees to enjoy their time by enjoying snacks while they focus on work.
Boosting morale is important in an organization, because employees with high morale have higher productivity and have the enthusiasm to do better at work. Do some things from the morale booster lists to create a positive culture in your office. If you want other information to thrive your business in finance, licensing, or anything from small to medium-sized businesses, visit SMEbrother and get all the information you need. SMEbrother is the best website for you to provide tips and tricks for your business progress and business success.
