MORALE AND HOW IT AFFECTS AN ORGANIZATION
Morale can be defined as the general feeling a person has toward accomplishing a particular task. Morale is mainly linked to individual attitude, current interest, state of emotion, and general orientation. According to ablyakimova (2018), Morale is described as the overall state of mind, one’s emotion that finally affects his or her attitudes, sentiments, and feelings of an individual towards their work. Organization by definition involves a group of people brought together to pursue and accomplish a common objective. Organizations can take many forms depending on their goals; for instance, businesses can be referred to as organizations. In this learning, we will see an emphasis on the customer service of electrical companies. Some organizations are large, while others are minimal if resources such as employees are to be considered.
Morale is connected to emotion and attitudes, and as such, it is a characteristic of a human being. This shows that Morale can only be linked to human resources within an organization and not any other resource. Moreover, something worth considering is that Morale can be initiated or limited within an organization’s jurisdiction or outside of an organization Ablyakimova (2018). Factors within an organization include lack of reward or appreciation for employees. In contrast, factors outside of an organization involve factors outside the power and control of organization supervisors. They have aspects that affect the individual employee while at home or in their social and economic life. Such issues include; divorce issues of employees and lack of peace with the family members while at home. However, it’s reasonable that although the organization supervisors do not have a full grip on the cause of these external factors, they can play a significant role in minimizing them.
With the current high rate of employee turnover, the Morale of employees should be given priority by the management of any organization with human resources to enhance efficiency within the organization.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Morale in an organization is an essential factor since it is directly linked to one of the critical resources within an organization, that is, the human resource. This shows that Morale is like a driving tool that enhances the employees’ effectiveness and efficiency in accomplishing an organization’s mission, as stated by Vaithyasubramanian et al. (2020). In this study, I will be focusing on an electric company’s customer service. And as already said, an organization comprises a group of people who bring their various resources together to achieve a specific goal harmoniously. One of the missions of every organization is to achieve high productivity using the available resources. In recent times there has been low productivity in organizations, one of the factors linked to this challenge is the low morale of employees. Although many people have researched this area and emerged with different findings, it’s good to analyze and determine if employee morale is a significant factor that organization management has to consider.
Many people have tried to solve the problems of low productivity in organizations, using many approaches. There are usually many scenarios that are vivid concerning productivity and the output of an organization. They include; low Morale and low productivity, low morale and high productivity, high morale and high productivity. These show circumstances that sometimes exist within different institutions. However, as I check through the list, I have to pay attention to the situation to provide a long-lasting result.
We have seen that the resources within an organization do not need only to perform their various tasks; instead, there is a need for harmony between the various factors. There is a need for a positive relationship between employees’ emotions, attitudes, interests, and the organization for there to be a harmony between the human resource and the other resources.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The study will focus on electric company customer service as an example of an organization. This study will try to show the relationship between the Morale of employees within the electric company and its success. Moreover, I will also consider the factors that positively and negatively impact employee’s Morale and carefully observe how these factors can be minimized or enhanced to positively change the Morale of the employee for the organization’s success.
This study will involve incorporating and analyzing the literature of various authors who had attempted to solve problems in different fields. In doing this, I will capture how the Morale of employees has affected the productivity in an organization, focusing specifically on electric company customer service. I will consider literature conducted in the past and those done recently; thus, I will be able to grasp the trend of what we should expect to happen in the future.
The methodology section will also be inculcated within this section, and this will show the method utilized to realize the results obtained. The methodology will help in getting the desired result. There will be an integration of the method used throughout the study to help develop the suitable stand and conclusion.
HYPOTHESES
During the study, variables were tested for their links and correlation with one another. The following are the hypotheses that were developed:
H1: Morale has a positive connection with employee retention in an organization
H2: Morale has a positive relationship with the components of an organization
LITERATURE REVIEW
Currently, the world has progressively moved technologically in its operations. Many industries have been forced to develop innovations and technological know-how to cope with the prevailing competition and quality standards in the marketplace. Human resource is one of the primary factors that determine the success of an organization. Due to this, there is a constant need to improve the human resource sector in various organizations. To enhance production, many research institutes have propped up and are conducting research. Many journals and books have been published on how to improve human resources within an organization. One of the issues that has been seen to affect the employees’ productivity is Morale’s level that is prevailing within the human resource department in an organization such as electric company customer service.
A point to consider is that there are many employee Morale subsets, which contribute to the positive change in an employee’s attitude. In this study, I would shift my focus to an electrical company with customer service. Since organizational structures are generally similar, we can use research from other fields related to the electrical company to relay the information appropriately. As such, I will look at various research topics on enhancing employee morale and how those factors help in the effectiveness of customer service in electrical companies.
EMPLOYEE VOICE AND MORALE
According to Shabab et al. (2019), employees’ voice is defined in three different dimensions. First, he described it as the expression of individual dissatisfaction using the required grievance procedure. Second, he explained employees’ voice as the collective dissatisfactions that are usually raised by the trade unions through the act of collective bargaining. Third, he defined employee voice as the process through which employees exercise communication upward to the management during decision making. When carefully observed, these three definitions can sum up to one definition about employees’ voice: employees’ voice generally refers to the allowance for the communication of employees’ ideas and thoughts about the running of an organization.
Shahab et al. (2019) link employee’s Morale to employees’ “job satisfaction, feelings of well-being and outlook.” According to Kandavel et al. (2018), “Morale of the employees’ may be termed as an imperceptible perception that delegates to how supportive and positive a group feels. The feeling may be a concern the company to which it belongs and the extraordinary emotions the group members share, such as purpose, trust, one’s achievement self-worth pride, and faith in the organization and leadership success.” Ablyakimova (2018), as we have already seen, defines Morale as the overall state of the mind one’s emotion that finally affects his or her attitudes, sentiments, and feelings towards a task. “A state of awareness that reflects passion, serenity, gratification, enthusiasm, and whole attitude at someone’s work is known as Employee morale. It also drives efficiency, as gratified employees will probably achieve high.” (Pattnaik et al., 2020).
According to the number of scholars who have attempted to define Morale, we can observe Morale’s definition that different authors have different purposes. However, there is clarity that Morale is connected to human resources only because it involves feelings. According to Heathfield (2017), when employees have a positive attitude towards an organization, and when they are sure that they will achieve their career ambition within the organization, they usually have high morale. “The organization attains its full prospective in terms of profitability and business once the Morale of employees is high. But when the personnel is working remotely, the organization needs to take efforts to retain, nurture, and increase the employees’ team spirit and get by with the distant work environment” (Mishra & Jena, 2020).
According to the research done by Shabab et al. (2019), it’s evident that employee voice plays a vital role in boosting their Morale. When employees have a say in an electric company organization’s operation, they have a sense of belonging to the organization. These, in turn, improves the performance of the employees. In this instance, they can portray a positive attitude toward service to the customers. The improvement in the employees’ performance then positively contributes to the growth of the electric company as a whole.
EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION AND MORALE
Motivation is the force existing within an individual which compels the individual toward action (Ouma et al., 2017). There exist two types of motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The extrinsic form of motivation originates from outside, while intrinsic motivation arises from within an individual. According to Ouma et al. (2017), while researching the importance of motivation in higher learning institutions in Kenya, he established that motivation plays a huge role in enhancing the employees’ Morale. He defined different ways employees can be motivated; through pay rise, gifts, appreciation, and promotion, there is reward and recognition in motivation. Ouma et al. (2017) found that motivation can be both psychological and physiological. When an individual is satisfied both physiologically and psychologically, Morale’s level goes up, and his or her performance in the workplace is also affected positively. Although it is worth noting that during the research of Ouma, he found out that employees consider, that money is the most important form of motivation. Ouma concluded that money is one of the essential aspects of motivation; however, it is a short-term motivator.
According to Ouma et al. (2017), employees will often live a firm if they are not well compensated; however, if they are well rewarded, they will be retained within the organization. Another critical factor that comes into view is the issue of how to motivate. The research found that when employees are motivated collectively but unfairly, it results in conflict among the employees and between employees and the management. This pie chart clearly shows that most individuals agreed that money is a necessary form of motivation.
REMOTE WORK AND MORALE
Remote working involves carrying out an organization’s activities using devices such as computers or mobile phones while you are physically away from the organization. “Remote work entails changing the dominant work location away from the customary office area. It is primarily a work preparation in which the personnel doesn’t need to travel to a significant workspace like an office.” Pattnaik et al. (2020). For people who have worked for big companies or for those who hold managerial positions, it’s rare to find them working remotely, this is because most of the time, their physical presence is demanded since they handle compassionate information. As technology improves, many facilities are available at the disposal of companies, and as such, many activities of an organization can be carried out online.
“Remote graft is increasing. The number of workers working away from the site is increasing, as the hours spent. In the year 2012, Gallup data indicate that 39% of workers worked remotely in some capacity, which meant that they spent a portion of their time working away from the organization. In the year 2016, the number grew by four percentage points resulting in 43%. The percentage time spent for those who did not work remotely increased from 2012 to the year 2016. The SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) found a threefold increase in the number of companies offering remote work options between the years 1996 and 2016” (Hickman et al., 2020).
According to this statement, it is good to consider whether remote working affects the Morale of the employee. According to Hickman et al. (2020), it’s evident that when employees are given some time to work remotely, they have that sense of freedom, and they can be very productive. Moreover, according to Hickman et al. (2020), I found that employees who present themselves to work physically are more likely to suffer from anxiety and probably depression. However, a mixture of physical presence for work and remote working can be of great value. Working with employees entirely remotely has adverse effects because the employees feel the sense of detachment from the working environment and can feel lonely, significantly reducing Morale. This implies that there should be a balance between remote working and physical working. However, suppose the condition requires complete remote working. In that case, the management has to introduce mindfulness, as indicated in research done by pattnaik et al. (2020), on his research on how mindfulness affects the Morale of the employees. As such, an electric company should ensure that it has flexible policies that can allow employees dealing with the customer service to work while at home.”There is an appalling need to analyze tasks, roles, and responsibilities to determine which work provides a remote model and to analyze it quickly by enhancing certain adjustments in the existing policies of the organization” (Gartner Learning & Development Research Team, 2020). The tasks that are complicated and demand greater attention can be achieved better in the absence of distraction, according to Golden & Gajendran (2019). This ensures that employees are well remunerated, and the electric company can enjoy a high level of retention of the employees working in the department of customer service.
Klopotek (2017) did research on how remote work affects young employees. The findings indicated that; young employees prefer to work mostly remotely; this is because it provides flexible working hours and saves on commuting to work. Also, the research done by Owl Labs State of Remote Work (2017) shows that people generally want to work remotely because of workplace distractions.
TEAMWORK AND EMPLOYEES MORALE
Kandavel et al. (2018) define teamwork, “Teamwork involves the concept of people operating together cooperatively, in a sports team, sales team, etc.” As a result of a study by Kandavel et al. (2018), the most critical aspect of teamwork is individuals’ interpersonal skills in the group and their self-management. According to research, the partnership helps in boosting the performance of the group members. This is because the members can interact and can share ideas within the group. Also, an aspect of psychological satisfaction of being cared for and loved within the groups increases employee morale. According to Kandavel et al. (2018), managers should employ group design within the organization to enhance teamwork. Teamwork increases the Morale of the employees within the organization.
MINDFULNESS AND EMPLOYEE MORALE
“Mindfulness is the natural human capacity of being in a state of awareness and giving utmost consideration to what is taking place in the current moment.” (Pattnaik et al., 2020). Human beings are part of nature full of distractions; at times, it is difficult to pay attention to the present moment for a long time without the mind being swayed away with a particular activity in the immediate environment or thought of the past future. When something terrible has happened in the employee’s life in the past, continuous reflection on that incident through thought may trigger depression and reduce the employee’s overall Morale. As already mentioned, the world is moving digital, and many things are done remotely. Many organizations are being forced to launch remote working schedules to start familiarizing the workers with working at home. During this period of remote working, the employee may have a sense of detachment from the organization and the fellow employees; this may reduce concentration and general Morale of the employees, hence introducing the concept of mindfulness.
As mentioned by pattnaik et al. (2020), conversant with mindfulness do not focus much on the past or the future, but their attention is concentrated on what is happening at the present moment. Pattnaik et al. (2020) said in his research on how mindfulness improves Morale, found that mindfulness leads to the improvements of three areas of a person: control, efficiency, and stability. This is congruent with the research done by Vonderlin et al. (2020), where it is quoted “A wide variety of industries across sectors that offers mindfulness-based programs to their employees includes the software and hardware development companies that such as Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, and SAP. Social media podiums such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn; clothing and furniture enterprises such as Nike and IKEA; insurance companies and global financial firms such as Goldman Sachs also offer employees’ mindfulness-based programs.” When taught the importance of mindfulness, employees can concentrate more on their tasks; this intern increases Morale, resulting in high productivity.
BENEFITS OF INCREASED MORALE TO ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE
As already defined, organizations are composed of a group of people who come together and pull resources to achieve a common goal. The organization has its components; some are tangible while others are not, for example, the services provided. The human resource appears to be one of the essential components of an organization; the human resource comprises managers, employees, and all other sectors that consist of humans. The following are the benefit of increased morale:
Retention
Retention is concerned with how well an organization can hold on to the members (Ouma et al., 2017). Retention is concerned with the organization’s ability to maintain the employees within the confine of the organization. Keeping employees in an organization without them moving out seeking other jobs has been quite difficult for employers. However, according to this study, the Morale of employees contributes highly to employee retention. As such, it is increasing the Morale of the workers within the organization increases the employees’ retention.
The running cost of an organization involves the day-to-day cost of the operation of the organization. When employees have low Morale, they have a common interest in the process of the organization. This can lead to a high turnover value of employees within the organization. The organization can be forced to re-employ new workers who are charging higher salaries or additional costs in training the employees for the organization’s operation. However, when employees are motivated, they tend to be retained within the organization. This saves the organization on the additional running costs, which would have been a high employee turnover.
Reduce absenteeism
Absenteeism is where workers do not appear regularly at their place of work. They do this for no valid reasons. When employees started to stop appearing at the site of work consistently, the organization’s productivity generally goes low. A lack of Morale causes absenteeism by employees. When Morale is law, employees do not have a good reason to report to work. However, when the Morale of the employees is high, they appear to work more consistently.
Help in quality decision making of an organization
Decision-making is an essential component of an organization, an organization with well-refined decisions has high chances of success. When the Morale of the employees within an organization is high, they can relay critical information to the management. This can then help the organization to make significant decisions that can propel the organization to higher heights
Morale promotes unity in an organization.
Unity denotes the existence of the human resource within the organization in harmony. The harmonious existence ensures that the organization is focused on achieving a single objective. The morale of the workers within an organization promotes a positive attitude among the employees in the organization. This, in turn, promotes unity among the employees and the harmonious existence between the workers and the management.
Morale helps employees to enjoy the work
It is not normal to enjoy work, especially if the task is physically exhausting. When an employee has the passion and interest to accomplish the organization goals, they work hard willingly for the organization’s benefit. This is because they understand that when organizational is successful, they will be successful too. When an employee has Morale, he or she enjoys the task he or she has been allocated.
LASALLIAN FRAMEWORK
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On the Lasallian framework, the following flow applies:
Review of the study
As it has already been observed, various research has been conducted on how Morale affects organization effectiveness. It has been found that retention is concerned with how well an organization can hold on to the members (Ouma et al., 2017). Other researchers include Kandavel et al. (2017), Pattnaik et al. (2020), and Vonderlin et al. (2020).
Judgment on the study
Considering the study, it is evident that Morale has a positive relationship with both the organizational components and retention.
Undertaking a committed action
Finally, since various researchers have been reviewed and analyzed in this study, it has become clear that there is a relationship between Morale with both organization and retention of employees. The electric company’s management should ensure that the employees are well motivated through rewards, recognition, and promotions.
Methodology
Objectives of the study
- Factors that increase or decrease the employee morale within an organization
- Benefits of Morale and how it affects employee retention
In this study, sample results from different researchers were organized together and then analyzed. Various researchers used different research methods. For example, during the research conducted by Shahab et al. (2019), in determining the effects of the employee voice on their Morale, he and his team used standardized questionnaires. They submitted them to more than 90 employees, with 52 males and 32 females operating through south India. The latter has less than 10 years of experience in the workplace. The table below shows how the voice of males and females differ within an organization.
| Gender | N | Mean | ||
| Male | 52 | 3.72 | ||
| Female | 38 | 3.24 |
Bose et al. (2018), while researching the effects of employee empowerment on operative performance, utilized a structured survey on 80 employees. The results were then analyzed, and the hypotheses tested using the appropriate tools such as the standard deviation and mean. During their research on the relationship between employee morale and retention, Ouma et al. (2017) used stratified sampling to collect data, after which they collected data using table, mean, and graphs. Kandavel et al. (2018) used a structured questionnaire to collect results on 110 employees. There was a descriptive research design, and a simple random sampling method was utilized during the collection of data. During the time for analysis, Pearson’s correlation and regression were used.
Many authors researched the topic of human resources, and they used different methodology and tools. I then brought their tested hypotheses together before concluding the relationship between the Morale of the employees and the organization.
RESULTS
Through analysis of various research works, results state that there are many ways to increase the Morale of an employee—for instance, through; gifts, promotion, recognition, and various rewards. There is a positive correlation between the employees’ Morale with employee retention. This shows that when the Morale of an employee increases, employee retention also increases and vice versa.
It has also been found that Morale has a positive relationship with an organizational setup. The organizational components discussed include the human resource, which consists of the human element within the organization. Considering the results obtained during the study, it is worth noting that both the hypotheses stated at the start have turned true.
Below is a summary of statistics of the level of agreement per individuals according to Ouma et al. (2017)
Below is the graph of the percentage of employees who claimed that monetary motivation is a short-term motivator, as depicted in the research done by Ouma et al. (2017).
DISCUSSION
The result shows that there is a positive correlation between employee morale and employee retention; this signifies that the hypothesis is true. When the employees working in the customer service in the electrical company have high Morale, they tend to be interested in the company. The starting point of the interest is determined by how they are being treated within the company, for example, recognition, rewards, promotion, and the freedom they are given to participate in the company’s activity. In the department of customer service in the electric company, employees deal directly with clients. As such, this is a critical part of the organization, since it can portray the overall image of the electric company to society. As such, the employees’ motivation ensures that they are constantly in a good mood when interacting with the clients. This, in turn, portrays a good image of the company and can lead to more sales and profit.
Some factors determine the Morale of the employee, which are outside the company’s supervisors’ control; for example, there might be personal issues of the employee such as having disobedient children, facing divorce with his or her partner, and many others. In these situations, the supervisors should know how to identify and approach the employees, advise them on how to cope with the situation, or send them to the company’s guidance and counseling department.
Various pieces of literature have been analyzed during this study. It has been found that many scholars have different approaches and ideas in determining the factors that affect the Morale of human resources. However, these factors seem to differ in their terminology. They are all influencing one aspect of the employees, which is Morale. Anything done within an organization can either lower the Morale of the employee or boost Morale. The supervisors must constantly check on the electric company’s performance by analyzing how the individual employees are carrying out their tasks.
I have also dealt with certain aspects such as employee absenteeism in an electric company’s customer service. Management should prepare to deal with such issues. Different strategies should be employed considering the individual employee. As long as the company is also checking on the individual employee’s Morale, it is also essential to consider that some employees might be lazy and might negatively use the favorable working environment and freedom provided within the electric company. In case of such scenarios, the management should take appropriate measures to curb them before it becomes a culture
RECOMMENDATION
Due to the study’s findings, the Morale of the employees has a positive relationship with the employees’ retention rates. The electric company management should ensure that they implement ways that boost employee’s Morale, for example; giving rewards, recognizing the best performing employees, and promoting the employees who work hard.
CONCLUSION
This study has identified factors that promote the Morale of employees within an electric company’s customer service. Some of the issues that have been deliberated are employees’ voice, employee motivation, remote work of the employees, teamwork among employees. It has been established that an organization’s manager should consider these factors and put in place the best strategies to help in monitoring these factors. In general, it’s worth noting that Morale correlates positively with employees’ retention and organizational effectiveness. This means when employee morale increases, the retention of employees increases in the same direction.
According to research done by Ablyakimova (2018), I concluded that Morale is initiated within the jurisdiction of an organization or outside the organization. As such, the organization should establish ways to promote Morale among employees within an organization or develop a program to identify and solve lack of Morale among employees caused by factors outside the control of the supervisors.
The increased Morale of employees has been seen to have many benefits to the organization as a whole. Some of the services include low cost of production, high retention rates, unity, and quality decision-making among the employees. These benefits ensure that the organization achieves its mission and vision smoothly.
