One of our most enduring posts, probably because people love anything that incorporates "The Office" in any way, and also because people hate the very notion of "morale", largely due to the fact that the word is often used in contexts that would suggest a misplaced belief that he or she cares about his or her job beyond his or her inadequate paycheck:
"Morale has been low since the Firings began last year. Pru says morale is a word thrown around only in the context of its absence. You never look at a hot young thing and say, check out that spring chicken, but only use it to describe your great-aunt: she's no spring chicken." - Ed Park, Personal Days
Park's assessment of morale is exactly right. No one talks about whether employees are happy when they're actually happy. By the time some higher-up notices that morale is low, it's already too late.
Invariably, when said higher-up notices the low morale, he or she will not try to figure out the causes and will instead focus time and energy on alleviating the symptoms. People are complaining about not making enough money? Rather than give them raises, the higher-up reasons, why not take them all to play Paintball and give them some lollipops to take home with "TEAMWORK" written on the wrapper? Instead of addressing the fact that all the random layoffs might make people insecure about their job security, why not hang up an inspirational poster of a cat's two front paws clinging to a tree branch with "HANG IN THERE" printed below?
Yes, brilliant! Everyone knows inspirational posters fix everything! Morale morale morale.
1 comments:
Oh this is your best post yet.
I work in HR and think morale is the biggest w@nk of all. It's not that hard... treat people with respect and they'll be decent back to you. Patronise them with enforced fun and corny posters and they will eventually start a mutiny!
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