Boosting Staff Morale

Your staff are the bread and butter of business. You set up the bones of the company yourself, from an idea you cobbled together into something real over the years, and then you hired people on to make sure it worked. And you’re proud of what you’ve accomplished, and you’re proud of the people on your payroll – they all work hard, are incredibly skilled, and are assets to your company.

But the only problem is, they don’t work too well together. They all have something to say, they all have different ways of doing things, and that adds up to a melting pot of work attitudes that don’t mix. So what can you do? You don’t want to let anyone go, and you know you can’t find anyone better: how can you help your staff to start playing nice together?

Keep an Eye Out

If you notice any tensions arising, be sure to put a stop to them straight away, or at least make your staff aware you know they’re having some problems with teamwork. When they know you’re watching them, and always keeping an eye out, it helps to keep the office atmosphere a little more positive – no outright arguments on the office floor, at least.

But if you can, try to stop any tensions in their tracks as soon as they come about. You’re the boss, and you have the authority here. Set up some clear expectations of what you want from the people on your payroll; how you expect them to behave at work, what they can and can’t say to one another, etc. This can help to stop arguments from erupting, and insults from being thrown around – those can quickly create a toxic working environment that even your quieter, non confrontational employees will want to be out of. You can set out an office plan that keeps the common culprits on opposite sides of the room; it’s a school room tactic that can work wonders even in the professional world.

Book a Teamwork Activity

This’ll help prove to them that they are capable of all working together, and that any and all egos don’t have to clash whilst in a room. All of the people you have hired on to work for you have some kind of expertise, in each of their own ways, and now it’s time to put that expertise to a tangible test that all staff are party to. After all, practical demonstrations are often the most effective ways to teach.

Collect your staff together outside of the workplace, and give them a puzzle to solve. Send your team on an experience day, out in the country or within a makeshift military boot camp. You can could hire a bunker escape room for an hour every month, and make sure this element of enforced teamwork is a repeated practice within your office culture, until the lesson starts to stick.

Is your staff often up to no good, or can’t seem to get along? Let’s put a stop to this.

This is a contributed post.