Sales Morale
The morale of the employees in an
organization can make significant differences in customer satisfaction,
productivity and employee retention.
Each year, private, public and governmental organizations spend millions
of hard-earned revenue attempting to raise morale for the sake of harmony,
retention and productivity.
The treatment of the people in your
organization is a key factor in their overall morale. The concepts of Galatians
5: 22-23 can easily be applied as a template for any individual or company to
insure continuous and long-term high morale levels.
The Galatians concepts are listed below
with a brief description.
1. Love: To practice a deep care and concern for
others that says I place your welfare above mine. From a gender perspective, men want respect
and women prefer a deep care and concern about their welfare. Practice these perspectives and people will
go to war for you.
2. Joy: Not temporary happiness brought on by
pleasant circumstances, but a profound, ever present joy, that says I am at
peace. It is non-judgmental and
contagious by its very manner. Exhibit
joy as a leader and watch people wonder what you have and want some of it.
3. Peace: An aspect of joy that states the individual
is calm and objective in all circumstances.
Panic and shortsightedness are not practiced, nor are they acceptable.
Peace promotes approachability.
4. Patience: Allowing an issue or person to mature with
evenhandedness. Practicing patience does
not mean tolerating slothfulness or being sloppy. But, it does require insight and wisdom
concerning what is reasonable and acceptable.
5. Kindness: The outer representation of the inner
qualities of love, joy, peace and patience.
To treat others with respect and courtesy. Common courtesy goes a long way towards
maintaining smooth working relationships, even if it is time to reprimand or correct
an individual.
6. Goodness: The outward manifestation of a set of high personal
principles. To be trustworthy,
conscientious and consistent. Goodness promotes a trust in the leader that
contributes to high morale.
7. Gentleness:
Treating others with a level of understanding that matches their current
understanding of the rules, guidelines and principles at operation in the
company and its industry. And even
beyond that, practicing forgiveness.
8. Faithfulness: To adhere to Godly principles and the
principles of operation in your organization without prompting or threat of penalty. Trusting in those principles. Your faithfulness should result in consistent
treatment of all stakeholders in the organization.
9. Self-Control: An aspect of individual and organizational
control that maintains integrity and realizes individual and corporate
responsibility. Adhering to a self-imposed
set of standards consistent with treating others as you would wish to be
treated.
Not only is morale a critical issue in
your organization, but it is also the management’s responsibility. If the nine steps listed above are being
practiced, then several additional steps are very conducive to morale
enhancement. The level of job
empowerment, personal participation and respect that clearly communicates to
the employee that they are vital to the well-being of the organization are key
issues to the employee.
A significant level of personal motivation
can be derived from having strong leaders in the organization. A condensed list
of these leadership practices are included here.
•
Promotes participative
decision making
•
Listens well
•
Develops and sticks to core
values
•
Excellent communicator
•
Has empathy
•
Faces reality well
•
Has a vision for the future
Those employees who have reasonable
incomes and viable benefit packages will be motivated by having a substantial
say in their job functions; and will have a hope for the future by this
empowerment. If your associates lose
hope for their future inside your organization, then look for low productivity,
burn out symptoms and eventually their separation from the company. Leadership also includes a close mentoring
relationship with your associates that allow the leader to give regular thanks
for the associates job efforts and results.
One important qualifier is the proper
selection of people to match the job criteria.
Attempting to place an untrained person with a mismatched personality
style for a specific job responsibility is a formula for low morale. For example, asking a trained accountant with
an introverted perspective to take on an outside sales responsibility is a poor
choice. Proper selection, mentoring and
training are important aspects of the company’s responsibility to promote high
morale.
This management responsibility does not
include attempting psychological care for dysfunctional people by the immediate
manager. But it will certainly include
sufficient concern to refer these employees to professional caregivers.
During some previous research, I uncovered
an excellent book on morale issues, which has a morale test for your group
included. The book is titled “Motivating
and Rewarding Employees.” New and Better
Ways to Inspire Your People” by Alexander Hiam.
Published by Adams Media Corp., 1999. Hiam gives blanket permission to use his
test provided on pages 43 to 46.
You may have noticed that this information
does not recommend a tangible rewards program or continuous competition to keep
morale at a high level. Even money has
proven to be a short-term motivator.
People truly do want to contribute and have control of their job
functions. Care, concern and
empowerment. Try these three key aspects
of morale enhancement and watch your associates’ productivity rise!
Application:
Is there an area of this list that you
find personally or organizationally deficient?
Pick them out and systematically work to improve on these concerns. Remember that radical change rarely happens
quickly.
