Every team, every employer, and every employee will at some point face a situation when the morale of the group is down. It could be due to many reasons; perhaps it’s financial due to late payments or the team may be overworked and flustered with the expectation to meet deadlines. Regardless of the reason behind it, low morale causes many issues such as a loss in productivity, attrition and just people’s general view of being at work.

Working with a remote team for some time now has given me the experience to tell from a few key indicators when morale is dropping, either in the entire team or an individual. I look for signs like:

• A loss of productivity – One of my team may have been achieving ‘X’ amount of tasks a day and suddenly that has slowed to a trickle.
• Punctuality for work, start and finish times.
• Distancing themselves and a lack of communication.

These are just the three key indicators that I noticed in my team when morale is down.

There are three keys that I want to share with you on how I personally assist my team, and an individual, when I determine that there morale is down.

 

1. Offer Incentives

An incentive does not always need to be financial. Obviously however, offering a bonus or a pay rise is ultimately one of the great motivations for an employee to increase their productivity and boost their morale. One of the most common incentives that I will use is to give time off from work fully paid, particularly if morale is low due to stress related to large projects and pending delivery dates.

I will offer my team members days-off once a project has finished as a reward for their hard work. If they are working on a large project that seems to never be ending, this at least provides a light at the end of the tunnel to work towards. Some other remote team managers will use cash bonuses for projects that are finished by the deadline as an incentive

 

2. I Increase Communication

Considering that one of the key signs that morale is down in my team is the lack of communication from my team members, I counteract it by doing the opposite and increasing my communication. Ensuring that my team understands the full picture of the current situation so that they are aware that I understand how they’re feeling and I am pro-actively working to solving that issue. Once again if morale is down due to large projects causing stress, constant communication and updates help the entire team see the progress and the pending finish line.

 

3. Remove Work From the Equation

At busy times it is so easy to be so engrossed in work that we often fail to even have a decent human conversation with our team. It’s so important to build relationship and to remove work from the equation. When I ask my team members how they are each morning when they sign on for work, or even throughout the day, I sometimes get a response that tells me the progress of their work. Right there is a great indicator that I have not spent enough time building relationship and communicating with that team member outside of work context.

It does not matter how busy my team is with current workload, I will always take 5 or 10 minutes out of their day to have a chat about how they are, how their family is, how their birthday celebration went on the weekend, or what they thought about the last movie they saw. Removing work from the equation shows your team that you consider them as a person more valuable that what they achieve for you.