8 Innovative Ideas to Boost Morale

I was a motivational speaker for a franchise conference where the group was asked to brainstorm innovative workplace morale boosters. The best ideas went into a draw where the winner was awarded a new Ipad.

Given this extravagent bounty, many delegates put there heads together to come up with some very unique morale boosters. Here are some of the ones I like the most:

The Indoor Walking Path.

 

One healthcare recruitment franchise built a walking path around the perimeter of the office. To be used anytime people need to get off their butt and work out ideas.

Groups can walk too. Moving meeting are a regular occurance, outside of the confines of the 4 walled meeting room, movement stimulates employee creativity. Ideas are captured on tape.

Make New Recruits a Big Deal.

 

To make new employees feel important, one franchise has a routine where they write up a new recruit bio after interviewing them about things that matter- like their families,  background and why they chose this job.

They send this bio out to all employees. It is well written, colorful and includes a photo. Employees look forward to new recruit updates.


On-site daycare.

Today most families are dual income. This means employees are continually balancing work and family pressures; especially daycare. Organizations that feature on- site daycare allow employees to see more of their children ( at lunch and during breaks) and relieve them of the hassle of organized child care.

 

Free food.

One of the delegates gave a short motivational speech about the practice of offering free food( food is always popular). Google does this. They have a cafeteria that is stocked with great food, all free for employees (No wonder they are a top employer)!

Doling out free food may bankrupt some organizations but the promise of periodic spontaneous treats would boost morale.


Empowering Innovation.

One franchise has the practice of encouraging new ideas. If employees have a good idea , they are empowered to move it forward. Anyone feeling stagnant in their job can come up with an innovative idea and if it's a good one, they will be given the time and resources to see it through.

This same franchise empowers task forces to pull together and solve problems.

Culture of responsibility.

One of my pet peeves as a customer is when I have an issue, nobody takes responsibility for solving it and I am left bouncing around trying to find anyone who will offer insight.

One cutting edge franchise has a practice of empowering all employees to be accountable for whatever comes there way. They search out solutions and follow through.

Bring your dog to work.

Many people fuss over leaving their furry friends at home, locked up behind closed doors all day. Being careful not to transform the workplace into a doggy day care- dogs offer unconditional love and an immediate mind- body connection.

The Morning Huddle.

Start every shift with a short motivational speech, updates, progress reports and more. Communication is key to boost morale, so consistant regular meetings are important.

As the closing motivational speaker for the franchise conference; I tied some of these ideas into the central concept that time is money. Offering job perks that save employees time- can save you money. Boost Morale and offset lowered budgets by offering job perks that make life easier for employees and everyone wins.

4 Workplace Morale Boosters

With the economy in the tank and budget balancing acts affecting the front line; bad news flies at us daily. To keep people from falling into a motivational slump, leadership needs to continually spark inspiration.

If you are looking to inspire motivation at work...Try these 5 Leadership Morale Boosters:

1) Give a Motivational Pep Talk.

Regular pep talks are important to keep people on purpose and inspired by their work. It shouldn't be a formal motivational talk but a few impromptu inspirational word that bring people together in shared purpose. Recognize team strength, shared commitment, goals reached and add some informal humor to spice things up.

Make sure to do this regularly, have a format to make the motivational speech easier to create every time and rotate different leadership delivering the motivational talk. If done well, employees will look forward to the pep talk.

Read the Perfect Morale Boosters- the 5 Minute Motivational Talk 

2) Recognize People Regularly.

Genuine, Specific and most importantly unexpected, recognition goes a long way to boosting morale. Studies show the main reason people quit thier job is not pay but because they feel under appreciated.  Trouble stems because most leadership pay attention to staff only when things go wrong. Employees who actually do hundreds of things right every day take the heat when one thing goes afowel.  Take time to notice the good stuff and find unique and unexpected ways to show your appreciation.

3) Celebrate and Have Fun!

Informal, fun celebratory leadership staff events are key to enlivening spirit and inspiration. Through shared humor, informal bonds are strengthened and powerful comradery results. Never underestimate the power that this informal levity can have to increase spirit and enthusiasm. Unexpected celebrations ( the impromptu pizza party) can offer tangible memories and reap rewards for years to come.

4) Training and skills building is critical to keep employees motivated. 

Doing the same thing over and over again without developing any new skills will drain morale. From time to time give employees opportunity to learn skills directly related to the job or soft skills like communication, good wring or speaking skills. Send them to an outside seminar or bring in a guest speaker to challenge peoples perspectives and plant new ideas.

Leadership...Download your Free Top 10 Morale Boosters!

When you notice your workplace is in a slump, rely on the above morale boosters to save the day.

Team Morale Boosters

Any motivational speaker would agree that a pep talk wears off and you need continual reinforcement to keep the inspiration alive.

A good mix of morale boosters are necessary to boost enthusiasm and teamwork on a regular basis.

Here are a few motivational morale boosters:

• Use Social Media to Engage Younger Generations. Facebook event pages are great to post key points and reminders to keep the conversation alive.

• Have clear direction and goals and review them with employees regularly.

• The best motivational morale booster is to reignite employees sense of purpose and vision. Remind people what kind of a difference they make through their work. Publish good news stories or customer reviews. Put it under employees noses regularily.

• Leadership should present regular motivational talks. See our blog post Five Minute Motivational Speeches.

• Try teambuilding. Fun, spontaneous activities engage a team. Read Five Leadership Teambuilding Activities

• Recognize employees. The number one reason people leave their work is they don't feel appreciated! A good leadership recognition should be spontaneous, personalized, immediate and genuine. See Leadership Utility Motivational Speaker Creates Attitude of Gratitude.

• Have fun at Work. People love leadership that can take themselves lightly. Levity helps reduce stress and keep a positive vibe alive.

Boost energy levels by hiring a motivational speaker for your leadership retreat.

Five Minute Motivational Speeches as Morale Boosters

Speech is the mirror of the soul;
as a man speaks, so is he. Publilius Syrus

If you are faced with keeping people motivated on a day to day basis, there is no better inspiration than simple Five Minute Motivational Speeches. You don't have to be a motivational keynote speaker to give a motivational speech. Follow the four steps below to be an inspirational speaker and inspire and engage.

All leadership should get good at delivering these short Improptu morale boosters.

Ingredients to Five Minute Motivational Talks-

1.Have a compelling cause. What are you trying to say? Only one overall purpose should be weaved into each of the motivational speeches. Your objective could be:

• To recognize and appreciate the team or individual behaviour

• To re-engage a team toward their purpose and tie day- to- day activity and performance to it

• To inspire people towards a short term goal ( ie- let's sell 10 widgets before the end of the day, or lets call 10 clients, etc)

• To inform or educate employees( new policies, procedures,products)

• To re-energize your team

• To let your team know more about leadership values, goals and vision

2. Once you are clear on your objective, in point form write out all the main points you need to make ( ie- product specifications, deadlines, performance updates, etc)

3. Shape the message towards the audience

Why do they need to hear this? Do this? What do you want them to do differently? Motivational morale boosters speak to the needs of the audience, not what the speaker thinks is important but what the audience needs to hear.

4. Keep their attention. Be optimistic and project enthusiasm to give the message life and long term engagement.

Regular motivational talks are a powerful way to reinvigorate, keep inspiration alive and working towards common goals.

Motivational Keynote Speaker Jody Urquhart

Find out how to hire a Motivational Keynote Speaker

or the Return on Investment for an Inspirational Speaker

Group Morale Boosters! 5 Leadership Team Building Activities

As a motivational keynote speaker sometimes i get the opportunity to do a follow up leadership seminar. Here, I find team building self development activities really need to be catered to the group or they are a generic time drain.

If a group is looking for guest speakers for hire, I often direct them to help the guest speaker research and understand the audience.

A good leadership seminar makes people laugh, think, understand conflict and work together outside of their work context. Here are some fun, memorable morale boosters for your next seminar or event:

1. In a leadership seminar, I like breaking down the room based on 4 personality types ( after i have described what they are, characteristics, etc - See our blog post, What is your Leadership Thinking Style? ).  Following this I ask the group(s) to solve a business problem by creating a team, based on what personalities they want on it. What will each personality type contribute? How? What will be the drawbacks? In a true inspirational speaker Donald Trump Apprentice Style way; the problem could be to create an advertising campaign to promote a specific product. The discussion that ensues will help people see how personality styles create conflict and effect how you contribute to a team.
2. Another fun, simple leadership seminar team activity, based on improv.... is create a story with a word. Each person in a line up adds a word to make up a story. Some people don't listen or get nervous and they put in a word that makes no sense and word by word the group tries to make a sensible story. This is usually very hilarious and great lessons emerge about listening, interpretation, resolving conflict etc. You can create the story around a business theme you are working on to personalize this.
3. A simple and easy seminar activity is to tell two truths and a lie. In rounds of 8, each person tells two true statements about themself and one lie. The group has to decide which is the lie. A good way to get to know one another and very funny.
4. Balloons are Morale Boosters! Blow up a bunch of balloons of several colours. Have the whole room stand up. The objective is to keep the balloons in the air no matter what, they can't touch the ground. Seminar participants boink balloons to each other, gyrating around trying to keep them in the air. For variation, ask the group to move the red balloons to the front of the room, the green balloons to the back of the room, etc. I was a speaker at a healthcare conference recently and each of balloon colors designated your department ( ie- green is physicians, blue is nurses, red is pharmacist etc). The other speaker for the healthcare conference later tied in the balloon theme, it was great!
5. What I like about you. At a recent conference an inspirational speaker did this little activity and the crowd loved it! Have a flip chart paper for each person with their name at the top. Each person goes around and writes what they like about others on their respective paper. Afterwards, the posters can be displayed at work. It is a great morale booster when people can look up at their positive leadership qualities.

Add more fun to your leadership seminar with these simple, inspirational easy morale boosters that build leadership qualities.

Learn How to Hire an inspirational speaker

Looking for local guest speakers for hire? Check out your local NSA.

Morale Boosters for the New Year

Change your environment. Their is nothing like a new splash of vibrant color in your home or work to add inspiration and energy.

Drink Water. One of my plans for the new year is to drink more- water. Just have a few sips and it adds alot of vitality and energy to your day.

Submerge in the positive. Start the day on a positive note. I like to listen to a humorous motivational speaker or comedian. Funny inspirational speeches and comedy that don't require effort to understand, and are uplifting or funny stir up positive endorphins and are real morale boosters.

Start your Day Laughing. Laughter is cheap therapy. Laugh for no reason at all for 5 minutes every morning and you can change the course of your day. The simple act of laughing changes the body chemistry enough to embrace an optimistic attitude for the day. ( there is a study of nun who did this every day and they found over a decade their health was drastically better than the non- nuns). Also, have fun at work by sharing some humor in the workplace.

Learn Something. People thrive when our emotional and intellectual needs are met. In many workplaces, we do the same routine over and over again. Not exactly fertile grounds for learning. Garner inspiration for your day by continually grasping new content to feed your brain which will ultimatley improve your life.

Appreciate someone. Sharing your sincere gratititude with someone will not only feel good, it will has the power to repair or rejuvenate relationship bonds. The smallest gesture of recognition can make a big impact.

Bust Burnout. Do something in 2011 to decrease stress. There are hundereds of stress reducing activities from exercise to recreational activities to having fun at work. Pick one a day, you deserve it.

Communicate. When people don't know what's going on, they feel disconnected. Lack of communication festers underneath most workplaces or relationships fraught with conflict. Make it your goal to communicate clearly in at least one area of your life. My goal was to communicate better with a friend, so i called her every week, ( versus once every 3 months) and i now understand things about her so much better than i did before. Our relationship is stronger.

Do you have any Morale Boosters to Add?

Humorous Motivational keynote Speaker, Jody Urquhart