Why should we care about morale?
The thousands of men and women that work for the Department of Homeland Security, or one of the many agencies that support it, have reported low levels of job satisfaction. Really? Duh! That’s not new; we’ve been hearing about it for years. Maybe you’ve heard similar rumblings around your workplace. Oversight committees, special programs, research groups, internal investigations and other inquiries have been created in an effort to uncover the reasons behind dissatisfaction in the work place, likely in an effort to improve it. Many of those efforts have been flawed and are in need of a remodel. At least, that’s what some assume. While reading the stories and news articles that discuss poor morale, an assumption that “poor” morale is bad and that it will have a devastating effect on our agency if we don’t do something about it.
Leadership at agencies that support the the protection of our homeland— police, fire, DEM, etc. — need to be concerned with the effects of low morale reported in surveys. However, finding the supporting documentation to indicate why they should have that concern is a harder task. In other words, some supervisors claim there is not proof that the way their employee’s “feel” is important. The relationship between morale and workplace outputs within the public sector has not been as clearly defined in previous research. While complaints about morale might be common, documentation providing the impact of poor morale on the agency is less common. The examination of morale needs to go deeper than research that points out that people are not happy at work. We need to examine the relationship between satisfaction of employees within the public sector and the problems associated with it. Conversely, we might discover that there are no problems directly associated with poor morale and spending time and money worrying about it is a waste of resources.
My point is that we need to find a way to care about morale. I want to see the correlation between morale and positive workplace outputs. Don’t misunderstand, I like my co-workers. I’m not a masochist that finds enjoyment in the misery of those at my department that are bitching about the status quo. Intrinsically I feel that happier homeland security workers are better homeland security workers. However, as a leader at my agency I want to make sure that there is empirical data that supports my gut feelings. Is a “better” employee one that is more productive, more punctual or more supportive to others? Data from the private sector seems to show that to be true, but there are notable differences between private and public sector employees. That’s why I chose morale as my thesis topic at the Center of Homeland Defense and Security, and that’s why you’ll see a series of blogs from me in this Medium.com collection that discuss morale, workplace satisfaction, perceived organizational support, esprit de corps, and other semi-ambiguous concepts in more detail.
The results of the Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) provide some insight into morale within the DHS. However there are numerous support agencies at the national, state and local level that do not conduct annual morale measurement inquiries. It would be nice to compare the workplace satisfaction rates between all agencies within the discipline, but that is not done. The reasons these surveys are not conducted may be due to a lack of evidence to support a need to monitor satisfaction levels, the costs of surveys, the inability to process or understand the data, or for various other reasons. Therefore, there is much less known regarding the morale levels at these agencies, and how they compare to their federal counterparts. Data highlighting the correlation between morale and outputs at agencies with homeland security functions are available but must be pieced together from various sources. A comparative analysis of the morale studies that research public safety agencies would help identify what we know and do not know about the factors that affect morale within them. That’s my goal before graduation and I’m providing a sampling of my research in this blog.
Leaders within homeland security agencies frequently make decisions based on measurable outcomes. If data suggests that a change in policy or practice will benefit the agency, those changes are more likely to be made. In the reverse, if data suggests that the change will negatively impact an agency output, such as performance or efficiency, leaders usually avoid those adjustments. Research that helps determine the value of employee morale could influence a leader who needs to decide if morale improvement would be good for the overall health of the organization. Money could then be earmarked for morale, wellness and recreation programs because their benefits can be financially supported. If morale is shown to have a direct positive correlation on outcomes such as productivity and employee engagement, then it would be in the best interest of leaders within HS agencies to create programs that help improve it.
If morale is shown to have little effect on these factors, then money can be routed away from these programs and into other departments that better support the function of the agency. I am quite sure that leaders in the public sector will never want to respond to employee concerns about morale in the workplace with statistics that show how they “feel” doesn’t matter. However, these same metrics can heavily influence day-to-day decision making and we need to be in better touch with why morale matters without our workplace.
