Employee morale is something that needs bolstering even in the best of times. While there’s a pandemic going on, it might be even more necessary to take some steps to keep employees feeling like they’re doing something worthwhile.
Does Work Become a Sisyphean Task?
When does employee morale fall? It’s usually when employees start to feel as if the work they’re doing doesn’t mean anything. They may start to lose their sense of purpose, and they may start to feel like Sisyphus who was doomed to roll a rock up a hill everyday only to have it roll back down in the night.
Collective Anxiety and Depression
The story of Sisyphus is supposed to be one of the bedrocks of existentialism which, in normal terms, might just translate to depression. It’s possible for your entire workforce to be feeling a sense of collective depression if the work isn’t going as well as anticipated or if they’re not getting the kinds of results they expected. If there’s a pandemic going on, then the sense of anxiety permeating the environment might be so intense that everyone gets infected.
Understanding and Appreciating Employees
Understanding the reasons behind a fall in employee morale is not enough. You’ve also got to figure out how to bring it back up. Sometimes, the answer might be as easy as telling your employees that they’re doing well. Given everything that your business might be up against right now, any small increase in productivity or sales needs to be taken into account. So let your employees know that you understand how they’re feeling and how difficult the task is. Let them know that you appreciate everything that they do.
Keeping Employees in Touch with Each Other
Another thing that can help a business in keeping up employee morale is encouraging employees to keep in touch with each other even though they might be practicing social distancing. Being alone and isolated can bring morale down. So it’s important to have some contact, either by phone or via Zoom meetings.
Improving Morale by Providing Good Role Models
It’s also important for business owners and managers to try and keep their own morale up in one way or the other. When the other employees see that their supervisors are cheerful and productive day after day, they’ll also be prompted to keep their morale up and create a positive atmosphere in the office.