How do you boost employee morale in a factory environment?
The National Safety Council found that workplace stress amounts to 300 billion dollars each year in costs. This is in the form of absenteeism, turnover, and drops in productivity.
It is a costly problem when we allow the routine of factory work to stress people out because they feel like they do not have a sense of control over their environment.
You can combat this by giving people a sense that their contribution makes a difference, and so they have a degree of control and influence over their work.
Here are three tips on how to do this:
Tip #1: Help them understand the impact of their work.
Sometimes, this can mean actually teaching your employees the business.
Recently in our training, there was a situation where once the employees understood that there was the potential for more work to come into the factory if they boosted their production, they were able to increase the throughput in production. In turn, this adds to more job security and creates the resources to buy more equipment and give raises.
Tip #2: Involve them by asking questions.
Many times, leaders feel that they need to present the answers to every problem. This is not true. In fact, the leader would be better to say, “Here is our situation. What do you think?” When you ask these questions, it forces employees to start to think through possible solutions.
If their solutions match those of the leader, they have greater buy-in because it came from their mind and they spoke it, so they will own it.
Tip #3: Acknowledge accomplishments.
There are a lot of problems in manufacturing happening every day in terms of machine breakdowns, production shortages, and people not showing up for work. However, every day, 90% or more is likely going well. If the supervisor takes time to acknowledge the accomplishments, it makes employees feel like they are making a difference.
Winning as a team can boost the morale of the facility.
Leadership Training
Once you have implemented these tips to boost employee morale, you will notice that there is more that you can do. That is where our Front Line Leadership program comes in. We can deliver our training in person, virtually or you can access it on-demand whenever you would like.
It all starts with that conversation, and we look forward to connecting with you to see how we can be of benefit to your organization.
