Background

How to kill employee morale in5 STEPS

Motivation

• Confidence• Determination• A feeling of certainty• Interested(Oxford Dictionary, 1994)

More about it

• Motivation is to provide a motive, so that a person can act in that way.

Why we need morale/motivation

• If a person is motivated he will be more productive

• Can it be vice versa• If a person is more productive he will be more

motivated and high morale

The answer to our previous question is…

• Yes• “Productive people are happy people:

learning, development, achievement, and success pave the path to high morale.”– Rick TateSenior Managing Partner, Impact Achievement Group

Step 5

• Make Empty Promises• During orientation of new employees, empty

promises are the first step in killing morale. There’s nothing worst than being disappointed. By providing these new employees with dreams of promotions and promises of better benefits in the future, moral will begin to drop soon after they will realize their dream will never be. Many of them leave good jobs because they feel as though they were mislead, or the job wasn’t as they thought it would be.

• Maslow (1954) described about the need based theory of motivation, there are some levels of needs,

• physiological (food, water, reproduction)

• safety (shelter, healthy work environment, money)

• belonging (social, friendship, affection)

• esteem (status recognition, positive regard)

• self actualization (desire for achievement, personal growth, development, autonomy)

Step 4

• Promote Favoritism• One definite way to kill employee morale is to promote

an environment of favoritism.• By doing this you are telling your employee that only few

will be successful, and it will be those whom upper management likes, regardless of the actual job performance.

• Imagine the distraction to employee performance if they feel that their bosses does not like them? Paying favorites is the surefire way to lower employee morale & performance

• Individuals are motivated when they perceive that they are treated equitably in comparison to others within the organization (Adams, 1963)

Step 3

• Never give any feedback• Performance reviews? Who needs then when you are

trying to drive employee morale into the ground• Entrepreneurship Magazine: In order to keep high the

morale, employee needs to know 2 things:– Expectation of the employer– How well the employee doing to meet employer’s

standards• Without this info he will either Overwork in

exhaustion or Under perform

• An organizaiton without the culture of feedback will develop a culture of uncertainty and worry

Step 2

• Encourage Micromanagement• Leaving no stone unturned• Nitpicking at every action is a perfect way to

lower morale of employee• Not only it demoralize & pressurize him but also

causes the employee to become distant• They will lose confident when you bombard

them with commands & constantly looking over their shoulder

Control Freaks!

• By feeling less restricted and more empowered, staff will be less stressed and employee morale should remain high. In this situation, the incentives you originally put forward will have their desired effect and your sales staff should become a more productive, cohesive team.

2007 Mandy Leonard

Step 1

• Devalue your employees.• Making workers feel that they are replaceable,

will not only destroy morale but also make them disloyal

• Everyone needs respect and thus a employee also needs it

• Remember the famous Quote: treat others like you want yourself to be treated!

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