Employee Morale Isn’t Fixed with Perks
Every year, the internet offers up another “our culture is great here” post, where a cheap pizza lunch is presented as evidence of care for overworked employees.
Employee morale is often misunderstood. When people talk about improving morale, the conversation quickly turns to perks of free food, nice offices, social events, flexible Fridays. Those things can be enjoyable, but they don’t automatically create trust, connection, or engagement.
I’ve seen businesses invest heavily in “nice things” and still struggle deeply with morale. One business, for example, had a well-stocked snack station, spacious offices with natural light, and regular, well-organised events. Post-COVID, they were eager to rebuild their in-office culture, but attendance stayed low. When people did come in, no one talked. Everyone kept to themselves. The space looked great, but the culture simply wasn’t there.
This is partly why social media has distorted what we think a “good workplace” looks like. Online, we’re shown curated highlight reels of aesthetic offices, catered lunches, casual dress codes and flexible schedules without any insight into how those environments actually feel to work in. Perks are presented as proof of culture, even though they rarely address the underlying reasons people disengage. In many cases, they become an expensive distraction that masks deeper issues like miscommunication, unresolved conflict, disrespect, or burnout.
This is also why the Google example discussed in the podcast is often misunderstood. Google isn’t successful because of slides or free meals. They’re successful because they pay attention to friction. Rowan highlights how Google even measured how long people were willing to wait in cafeteria lines, not for novelty, but to remove daily irritations that quietly wear people down.
In small businesses, those “small problems” look different, but they’re just as impactful. Employees complaining to each other instead of addressing issues directly. People regularly staying late. Others consistently turning up late. Unnecessary expenses disguised as “lunch meetings” that don’t actually serve the team. These behaviours are often ignored because they feel minor but over time, they accumulate and erode morale.
Employees also tend to complain quietly rather than formally.
Hidden complaints of:
Overwhelm
Personality clashes
Favouritism
Subtle, disrespectful behaviour
Feeling undervalues
Unsafe or uncomfortable environments
When these issues aren’t addressed, morale drops, no matter how good the perks look on paper.
What actually improves morale is rarely flashy. It’s practical and often uncomfortable.
Asking for feedback and taking it seriously
Setting realistic deadlines
Addressing personality clashes instead of letting them fester
Removing any tolerance for disrespectful behaviour
Finding individual ways for employees to feel valued instead of assuming the same thing works for everyone
One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is assuming they already know what employees want. The knee-jerk reaction is assuming employees want more money or a promotion. While those things matter, they’re rarely the full picture. Many business owners don’t ask deeper questions because they get caught up doing things the way they’ve always been done without stopping to ask whether it’s actually working.
When employees see that their feedback leads to change they stop disengaging and start taking ownership of their work. Without trust, perks feel hollow and more like a band-aid, or worse… manipulative.
Feeling valued day to day comes from trust, independence, and visible action based on feedback. It’s not about being given more.
