West Nyack , 10994

Company moral can be very difficult to maintain especially when everyone is on edge about economic changes and job loss fear. Some company's are so afraid of these changes that they focus on keeping the business running and tend to forget that the sales line and teams are what is the blood line for the company.
This is a challenge to say the least. How do you keep your team motivated with them being afraid of the same thing that upper management is fearing.
Trust in a manager is very important. Working in a company where you feel that everyone is working for themselves can be very frustrating. This does happen alot in sales arenas. I think a lot of company's have failed due to its employees not having company profit mentality. If you don't promote your company and stand behind it ,the company will fail and in essence so will you, because they will close or cut back.

I think your team should sit down and have a discussion on what is expected of each person. Set out the guildlines for protocal on the chain of command. Once these things are done you feel more comfortable about job responsibilities. You also might want to have a suggestion box of what could be done to make the company more productive or questions that you all feel need to be answered in a non threatening way. If you do this and the questions and comments are typed they will not be linked to any one person. Get a commitment from the manager to do a once or twice a month inside office newsletter to address the questions that he can email to you all and then be discussed at your sales meetings
Also employees can have little get togethers on your own that is not funded by the company. Have a potluck
Another thing to do is, everyone put in $5, $10 or $20 a payday and have a contest, the winner gets half the pot and the next month have another one. Each month the pot grows by only awarding half. This contest can be for most sales, highest sales, most leads, most new customers or something else that is associated with your job or better yet divide into teams and that will help build teamwork again. The pot luck can be for the talley day make a party of it. You might even suggest this to your boss or DVP and see if they will match the give away with a gift card or something. You might be suprised.
These things may seem simple but they do help because you are right , team moral is important in your office.
We are lucky here at America's Home place or at least in this office to have employees who work well together. But just like all company's right now the extra's have also stopped. I think that alot of company's will realize that those little things do matter and will again start doing them. But until then we just have to make our own moral in our own individual offices.
Good luck and I hope things get better there soon.
Cyndi Jamerson / Building Consultant
America's Home Place
Oxford, Alabama
256-835-4901