Three quarters of organisations never or rarely check on employee morale

Organisations cannot afford to neglect or pay lip service to employee morale if they want to retain talent, according to new research from MHR [registration]. In its latest Employee Experience report – which identifies employee wellbeing as a huge component of morale – MHR reveals that 75 percent of organisations fail to regularly check in on employee needs and attitudes, for example through satisfaction surveys.

Findings from a separate MHR poll demonstrates the impact this lack of attention is having on employee perceptions, with more than three-quarters (79 percent) of employees saying they do not believe their employer when they promote mental health initiatives in the workplace.

The huge number of employees who think that there is no support in place suggests retention will be a colossal issue for HR teams in 2024 unless communication on employee morale is drastically improved.

The Employee Experience report claims that these employee concerns might be well founded. Even among the companies that do run surveys, 40 percent fail to anonymise them, meaning team members will be far less likely to provide truthful responses or even provide a response at all. On average, response rates are just 60 percent, leaving companies unable to record adequate results. This makes it impossible for them to ensure everyone feels genuinely supported.

Jeanette Wheeler, Chief HR Officer at MHR, comments: “If companies are going to avoid these retention issues, they need to prove that they truly are committed to employee morale, especially wellbeing. Doing that not only means engaging properly with employees on what they need, but also communicating any resulting initiatives effectively. Companies who see the best results in talent retention work to understand employees’ wellbeing issues, act on those issues, and then communicate that action back to their employees.”

The research suggests so few organisations currently avoid running surveys because they are time consuming, with 93 percent claiming they do not receive instant access to results and on average it takes up to seven days to analyse findings. However, a quarter (25 percent) of respondents claimed they would be more likely to run employee surveys to monitor morale if analysis and reporting functionalities were built into their current systems.