There are many factors that affect morale within an organization. The largest factor has to be one thing, communication. Morale within an organization can be improved or destroyed by how the organization communicates. Communication can also send a message to the individuals, both within and outside of the organization.
A recent experience that I had was with our local telephone and Internet company. We had lost our phone service and Internet on a Thursday night. We called it in and was told that someone had to be home, they tried to schedule the appointment for Friday morning. Since no one was available to be there it was put off till Saturday. They gave a four hour window that they would be there, 8:15 am till 12:15 pm. At about 11:45 am when we called back the recording stated that the repair order would be done between 10:27 am and 3:27 pm. Since we had to change everything we were doing so someone could be there at 8 am till 12 pm, can you image the emotion that occurred? Here is a huge service provider that could not even keep the customer up to date on what was going on. This indicates how this organization communicates with it’s employees as well. This organization probably has a significant morale issue.
This is not the end of the story however. At 3:30 pm we called back because no one had shown up to do the repair. While talking to the individual on the phone and getting a little heated because she could not understand why I would be upset waiting all day and the repair still was not completed even after the “updated time” that was given; and then even extending that time again till 8pm that night; had the technician call me. Come to find out from the technician that it was not just us but the whole neighborhood. Someone had hit and damaged a junction box in an alley way and they had been working on it since Thursday night. What kind of message does this send to the customer?
If this is the way that the organization communicates with their “valuable” customer’s, the question begs to be asked, how do they communicate with their employees? Whether executive or senior management wants to believe it, they have a morale problem and communication plays a significant role in it. So what should our take away be on this? We better improve the way we communicate.