¶ … subjugated to the topic "The Importance of High Morale at the work place." Scholars and authors indicate in their empirical studies that organizational culture (high and low morale) is critical in making or breaking of the business. This essay includes two successful companies who have virtuoso work culture; Zappos and Google. Being listed in Fortune's"100 best companies to work" these companies have their own unambiguous combination to motivate and retain the employees and also deliver happiness around the office's paradigm. An elaborative overview and literature is induced by the author to provide depth to the research. This essay also comprehends to the issues faced by the organization in formulating morale. The easy three stage approach by Melcrum to develop positive Morale at the work place is cost effective. The report ends with conclusion and recommendations by the author.

However, there have been many limitations to the study such as word limit and time. Nonetheless, the author intends to research more elaborately in his future.

The necessity of high morale in office place

Overview

An organization must have high employee morale (McFadzean & McFadzean, 2005).In other words; high morale can also be termed as job satisfaction which defines the employee's outlook about his job. In case of a high morale, the employee is content with his position in the firm and satisfied with the rewards structure in place. The variance in employee's thought process regarding rewards and actual rewards given is low. Similarly, with poor morale of employees usually results due to job dissatisfaction. The human resources have a key role in ensuring a good morale and job satisfaction of an organization (Robbins, 1998).

Low morale can be destructive for an organization lessening work productivity, damage client-customer relationship and tarnish an organization's reputation. Different elements can stimulate low morale in an organization. Job discontentment and multiple sackings are the most common ones. It also stems from barrier of communication between employees and manager, work not acknowledged and employees not able to socialize with colleagues.

For an organization to succeed, morale boost is a given. It dictates their motivation and employees feelings about their organization. Akdere and Altman (2009)takes the concept a bit further saying that, decision making goes hand in hand with instilling a positive impact on an organization which directly client-client contentment.

Forret and Love (2008)deems that morale is either high or low. The morale of an organization will direct the feelings of an employee about an organization. High morale was characterized by employees satisfied with work, office environment and reward structure. Low morale was characterized by job discontentment, negative attitude and hatred for the organization.

Elements regarding morale of an organization

Factors influencing morale constructively

The employees demand challenging work which would test them, resulting in job contentment. Robbins (1998) deems that employees value jobs which tests and challenges them.

Variability

The key factor in keeping employees motivated is to keep them challenged. With repetitive work, the employee gets jaded and excessive load can cause stress, failure and irritation.

Compensation rewards

Rewards keep the employees motivated. Employees mostly value rewards and compensation benefits for their work. The rewards must be in accordance with the employee's performance, based on job description, employees' competency and salary. In some cases, employees prefer stock options, change of location or less load of work. Important factor is keeping the employee content.

Appropriate job description

In this case, the skills, weakness, strengths, competency of the employee must meet their criteria of the job description which will result in better rates of productivity.

Private problems

Most employees have family and financial problems to deal with and that element is counterproductive to workplace performance. It degrades morale as well. At least, 40% of the employees in America are afflicted with private problems affecting workplace performance (entrepreneur 2006). The employees having such private problems remain distant, off color, less interactive with colleagues and are less seen in office communication such as:

Emails

Business meetings

Phone calls

Melcrum is a famous business website which indicates that three stage method to boost the morale of an employee:

Stage 1-: Listen: Pool feedback and ideas

Stage 2-: Communicate: Find solutions to problems and business issues

Stage 3-: Acknowledge: Employee and firm success

Maintaining employee morale

This 3 stage methodology can boost employee morale, but modifications are needed. Managers need to be trained in instituting an empowered work environment in places where they lack tools such as:

Salary rises

Promotions

Bonuses

Given below are some very valuable yet reasonably priced tools to implement in present economic climate. Managers need to go through them:

Autonomy: The employees must exercise discretion, freedom and independence in completing their tasks.

The employees should exercise self-management as well and take their own decisions.
Career growth: The employees must have revised career goals. They should be involved in mentoring, coaching and job rotation.

Goals: Employees should be loyal and dedicated to company's goals (Melcrum, 2014).

Cutting off employees and keeping motivation levels high during the period is hard, but these steps will ensure a favorable climate to remain on fast track. Zappos is listed as the 11th best company in Fortune magazine in 2012. He has penned a book titled 'Delivering Happiness', in which he explains his own rules of corporate culture.

Regarding Zappos

Zappos could be a new model to operate a business (Rosenbaum, 2010). The CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh would sell pizzas, greeting cards and earthworms. He never considered being a business failure and established Zappos. Now, he thinks happiness is the key and he can substantiate evidence on it. He just wanted to sell earthworms. He couldn't attain success in that venture, but he clicked in button making business. He deems that businessmen view failure as getting nearer to success, not getting de-motivated by it (Hseih, 2010).

He saw a market in shoes. According to him, shoe catalogs by paper mail back in 1999 had a value of 5% from $40 billion shoe industry. He calculated his share to $2 billion. Today, Zappos is apparently much more than $2 billion and encompasses more than just shoes. He says that we aren't fashion oriented, but we are aware of the best seller brands people know and we have our customers behind it (Hseih, 2010).

Tony may have had humble beginnings, but he understands employee motivation and corporate culture. Zappos values its employees and it shows through their processes.

The manager and HR department conducts the interview session in two parts. The former tests the competence, experience and skill of the candidate while the latter tests the candidate for being culturally suitable.

Our business ideology has ten core aspects. The employees must meet our ten postulates in order to fit in. Zappos ideology is as follows:

Providing stellar services

Instill change

Having fun and nuttiness

Being open, creative and daring

Being down to earth

Having passion and determination

Learning and growing

Working with less

Developing open communication

Having team spirit and fair play

Zappos deems and emphasizes that, employees who can't adjust in their company's environment are asked to resign with generous compensation

According to Fortune magazine, Google remains the best workplace globally for five times and appearing 8 times as well.

Regarding Google

Google is known as the world class organization with quality employee benefits. In depth, the company completely revamped the conventional HR framework to make Google a profitable and satisfying place to work. Google is the only company which has played a pivotal role in human life. Its products are taken as a daily necessity such as:

Google translator

Google maps

Gmail

Google earth

Android OS

The noble vision of Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998 was to make information available. In short, Google's short time span of 15 years has spun an array of innovative products. The company was a two man business venture which expanded into a full-fledged 37,000 employee corporation working in 40 countries. The first question raised here is that, how did they integrated this pool of workforce and ensured their productivity while keeping them loyal and ambitious? The key fact is that Google has intellectual greats in the HR department which has honed, refined and implemented conductive work practices at Google. Google takes pride in its employees and understands their intellectually driven minds and hearts as well.

Google has implemented these practices:

Employees have productive and inspiring projects

Employees aren't bound by time

Google has implemented democracy (Crowley, 2012)

Employees are trusted with company's secrets and employees don't disappoint. When yearly surveys are taken, employees observe their performances as well as their colleague's performances as well.

The employer-employee relationship is very delicate yet professional. Both work together for a common cause at hand. It all fits in.

Literature proof of the theory

According to Maddalena (2007), the decision taking managers should evaluate the collected data and then take a decision. Ensure that the decision has been made clear to the entire staff.

Foster et al., (2008) has explored the premises of keeping the employees motivation and concluded that Leadership Roundtable (LR) development program was an essential factor in doing so. It focused on these innate traits:

Confidence

Decision making skills

Looking at the bigger picture

In conclusion

Value and acknowledge the members of the team…