Morale In The Workplace

Newsday ran an article this week saying 98% of Americans have experienced incivility in the workplace.  This behavior leads to profit loss, bad morale and poor productivity. 

Among workers who said they were on the receiving end of incivility:
48% intentionally decreased their work effort
38% intentionally decreased the quality of their work
25% admitted to taking out their frustrations on customers

Teacher morale is at an all time low.  While Principals and assistant Principals can't do anything about salary,  VAM and other things coming from outside the school, they can do things inside to make things better.  For one, they can treat all teachers equally.  They can stop setting up certain teachers to fail and others to be teacher of the year.  They can program fairly.  I have seen countless examples of stacked classes, stacked to make a teacher look good and stacked to make them look bad.  I have seen APs make excuse after excuse for one teacher's lateness and write letters when another is 2 minutes late once in 20 years.  I have seen administrators publicly reprimanding teachers with no regard to who is around.  I've seen administrators take credit for teacher work.

In a school, hurting teachers hurts students.  Yet, nothing is done to help improve it.  I remember sitting at a small meeting where morale improvement was the goal.  One or two members of each department voiced what they considered problems.  The discussion ended as soon as we walked out the door.  Nothing was done.

I remember an AP I once worked for who wanted everyone to come to his end term party.  He thought it was a great morale booster.  Many of us boycotted.  A party did nothing to fix the situation we were in all year round.

(Newsday March 25, 2013 page 41)

(Nail Bird by Madison Square Park)
 

Happy Workers = Productivity



I turned on my radio this morning as my favorite morning show was saying goodbye to a staff member who, after 5.5 years was moving on to greener pastures.  The hot talked about the success of the show, an claimed it was not due to him, but to the wonderful staff he surrounded himself with.  The member leaving talked about what a happy place it was to work, how she often did not want to wake up early and come, but being there was an enlightened experience.  The atmosphere in this workplace, created by the host and the management was what made the station the great station it is.  The staff was encouraged to do their very best.  The atmosphere promoted this.

I thought about my high school experience as I listened to this.  I thought about the AP and principals who surrounded themselves with good people and then promptly took credit for all the good work they did.  The APs and the principals got the bonuses while the teachers worked on and on.  One AP I know is notorious for taking teacher ideas and then presenting them as her own.  When the teachers got too old, or too bold, the administration would do what they could to push them out the door. The environment was not a warm fuzzy place where people were happy to work hard and work for the good of the whole. 

Good people are now exiting all the time.  Teachers who never thought of retiring are walking out as soon as they hit the magic number that allows them too do so.  Others are actively looking for other positions or staying away for other things as long as possible.

This radio station is a business model that schools should follow.  Too bad they don't.