Morale and Productivity

When it comes to business success, morale and productivity are tied together in ways that many managers do not understand. Morale is of paramount importance. Unhappy employees do not present the kind of “faces” to your customers that make them feel welcome and appreciated. In fact, unhappy employees often exhibit the sort of behavior that says to a customer, “go away, you are not wanted here…” and that sort of feeling is long remembered. Even when there is no direct customer contact, an unhappy employee in a manufacturing job will lower production numbers and have increased failure rates. A company in Columbus, Ohio once made automotive suspension parts with a 12 percent failure rate on one assembly line. It was found that workers who are scheduled longer than eight hours had higher parts failure rates the longer they worked. After ten hours of work, the assembly line failure rate was so high that the loss in raw materials was too costly. Employees in that factory made high hourly wages and over-time pay for anything over eight hours in a day. Not only were bad parts expensive in raw materials, they were exorbitant due to the amount of over-time pay given to employees for the extra hours worked. Finally, that auto-industry OEM came up with an incentive plan that rewarded employees for the number of good parts produced buy giving them a stake in the profit made. The plan was known as “Improshare”. Eventually, that OEM was sold when the company owner retired. The company’s new management failed to manage the business properly and Columbus Auto Parts closed its doors. When the employees were given a stake in the success of the business, it was a good incentive and good for morale. How Can You Improve Morale in Your Business? Little things mean a lot. In a nutshell, anything that makes the employees feel appreciated goes a long way toward better productivity and increased profits. I’ll be writing about these in the coming days… stay tuned.