As HR professionals, what are some things you do to boost your employees' morale?  Once in awhile we have a potluck here and (I'm still fairly new to my company) I guess they do a Halloween party and Secret Santa exchange.  Do you also do anything to recongize things like Black History month or Women's History month? 

gi_janearng:

As HR professionals, what are some things you do to boost your employees' morale?

 

Pay them more?  

I think we do a lot. For employee birthdays we buy lunch for the whole office. we give gift cards for local restaurant chain on anniversaries (handed out at a staff meeting to acknowledge the employees contributions). Monthly competition for employees to participate in putting articles on our intranet ($100 gift card to best buy for top 5 contributors). We do white sox  / cubs games a few times a summer. holiday party, etc

TXHRGuy:

Pay them more?  

Come on TXHRGuy, haven't you said before that paying someone more isn't always going to make them happier or improve morale??!!!???

Depending on the culture of your organization there are lots of things you can do to help morale, both costly and not so costly.  Here are somethings we do.  We provide coffee, tea, hot chocolate, bottled water, sodas and snacks.  May not seem like a lot but there are many organizations that don't provide any of those things.  We also have a celebration on the last Friday of every month for those that celebrated birthdays during that month.  We normally get some sort of treat (ice cream, cake, brownies, ice cream sundaes, etc.).  In the summer we get a suite at the local Triple A baseball team stadium and invite all the employees and their families.  The cost is not as expensive as you would think and we are supporting a local organization. 

Although I was just having a little fun there, keep in mind that food=compensation.  After a certain point, for most people, cash compensation is less important than other forms of compensation (like snacks and bottled water), which is nice since it's usually more feasible to buy cookies than give everyone a 3% raise.  Of course, for some people, cash is all they care about.  On the other hand, if your pay is below local equilibrium for the job market  and profession, you have to jump through a lot more non-cash compensation elements to get anybody to work for you AND exert discretionary effort AND stick around.

 

The best way to keep morale up is to do things that build a sense of team or, better yet, community.  Also, as necessary, train, discipline, and terminate line supervisors and managers who do not respect the dignity of their employees or who do not have as one of their chief concerns the success of every person in their charge.

Like others who have responded, we recognize birthdays and milestone anniversaries with either a cake and/or a breakfast spread and/or a lunch (potluck). (Wish I could say we took our employees to sporting events like some of the others who responded!)

But I wanted to pose another way to boost morale--what kind of reward programs do you have? Do you publicly acknowledge special accomplishments? Do managers or execs ever recognize specific employees at company meetings, etc? Having some sort of effective reward program can go a long way in boosting employee morale...Just a thought.

We have a quarterly MVP (most valuable person) award.  They are included on a plaque and given a bonus durign out quarterly meeting.  We also have employee appreciation week, duirng which we have different things such as free car washes, breakfasts, gift cards to local restaurants, potlucks, and even departmental movie outings.    Its only once a year but every day of that week there is something special prepared.  Needless to say we have 100% attendance and they talk about it for months after. 

In the office I work in (drafting department [I have split responsibilities]), we just have a laid-back environment where we're all good friends.  Birthdays are celebrated appropriately (I recently turned 21, so you can imagine how that went!), we play little games throughout the week, listen to the radio (Lex & Terry seems to be the department's favorite), have rubber band wars, NERF gun wars, etc.

Keeping an office in a comfortable environment is one of the biggest morale boosters available (in my opinion).

-Justin

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Eat. Skate. Sleep. Repeat.

What we recommend to clients is kick off your team meetings with 10 minutes of fun. Use a simple, easy and fun team based game to get people laughing, moving and motivated.

You will find that creating a little laughter can go a long way.

A good one is Balloon Stuffer - you can watch a video of how the game works at http://www.funergizers.com

Good to see that some businesses see it as being an important thing to do.

 

Cheers.

In this recession, there is no way! Work & behalf yourself otherwise consider yourself a redundant!!!...

 

Cheers...

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Our company formed an employee Fun(d) committe. A group of volunteers who host events throughout the year, mostly food centered where employees are charged a nominal amount. The kitty collected throughout the year is then used to fund a free employee holiday party and a summer BBQ. both events are open to employees, retiree's and family. While the food events seem to run non stop for the members (valetines day cookies, St. Patrick's day stew feed, tax day bake sale etc... the goal events with family participation are really well received).

We have an annual Employee Awards ceremony. We have a policy detailing certain "classes" of recognition and descriptions of activity that would fall in each category. We have a catered event to present recognitions, awards, trophies, and medals. Beyond that the city has an applicable recognition policy called "Catch A Star" that is very effective.