30 Clues That Your Company Has a Morale Issue

Recent studies have shown that low employee morale leads to reduced productivity, higher turnover and unhappy customers. Common sense also dictates that when staff feels dispirited or underappreciated, they will not do their jobs as effectively, efficiently or with great care. As a business owner or senior manager, how do you know when your people are feeling blue?

If your company’s experienced any of the following recently, chances are you’ve got a morale issue on your hands (in no particular order):

1. Layoffs
2. Restructuring
3. Furloughs
4. Elimination of bonuses
5. Pay raise caps
6. Hiring freezes
7. Merger/acquisition
8. Loss of major existing/prospective client(s)
9. Sharp increase in staff attrition
10. Spike in customer service complaints
11. Departure of company founder/longtime senior manager
12. Increased absenteeism
13. Increased reporting of staff to HR
14. Decreased revenue relative to expense
15. Reduced per-employee productivity
16. Negative media reports about company or staff
17. Theft of office equipment/proprietary information
18. Sabotage of workflow processes
19. Unusual delays in product/service delivery
20. Increase in customer refund/exchange requests
21. Reduction or elimination of employee benefits, sick/vacation days or amenities
22. Staff relocation due to facility move/construction
23. Long-term client crisis
24. Staff required to work extra hours, days or on holidays/weekends
25. New staff responsibilities without commensurate compensation
26. New dress code, Internet usage or other HR policies
27. Implementation of new performance evaluation system
28. Technological/system changes
29. Negative comments about company on employee blogs, Facebook pages or other social media
30. Addition of new step(s) to something that’s always been done the same way

Low workplace morale isn’t good for business, but you can do something about it, so long as you can detect it. What are some other signs that office morale might be down?