When leaders ask how to improve employee morale after layoffs or restructuring, they often look first for a new program. Actuant Electrical’s Lumberton, North Carolina, operation shows why the deeper work is cultural: people need a reason to trust one another again, a voice in the future, and simple ways to act on those values during the workday. The plant used the FISH! Philosophy to rebuild morale after the recession and to connect everyday behavior with safety, quality, efficiency, and delivery.
What happened to morale at the Lumberton plant?
The Lumberton operation manufactures Acme Transformer™ brand transformers. Before 2009, the staff described a “thriving work culture built on pride and sweat,” supported by a talented workforce loyal to the brand and Acme operations. Then the recession hit the industry and company hard. Restructuring left the facility one third its former size in both product volume and number of employees.
The change affected more than the org chart. The staff wrote that most employees no longer felt they knew who Acme Electric was, or how the feeling of “family” had faded so quickly. Low morale followed, affecting attendance, quality, efficiency, and on-time delivery.
After layoffs, remaining employees may carry uncertainty, heavier workloads, and doubts about whether leaders understand what they are experiencing. SHRM points to clear communication, genuine recognition, and employee input as ways to rebuild trust.
Clear communication, genuine recognition and employee input can help rebuild trust after a layoff.
How did the Lumberton team begin to improve employee morale?
In March 2011, the leadership team was introduced to the FISH! Philosophy. Eight energized staff members then engaged a simple plan: “educate the workforce” while capturing what makes up a fulfilling workplace, great service, and effective relationships.
FISH! gave the workforce a shared language for daily choices: Be There, Make Their Day, Choose Your Attitude, and Play. Together, they ask people to be present, value others, choose how they will show up, and bring curiosity to work.
What does Be There look like at work?
For the Lumberton staff, Be There meant listening to one another’s ideas, freely giving opinions about how to create a more effective work area, giving coworkers a helping hand, and responding with an open mind to new ideas and situations.
Those actions answer a large question employees often have after change: “Does my experience matter here?” A manager can practice Be There by giving a frontline worker full attention, asking what is getting in the way, and returning with a clear answer or next step.
It also means listening without preparing a rebuttal. When employees can raise a concern or offer an idea without being dismissed, they are more likely to share useful information before a small issue becomes a safety, quality, or delivery problem.
How can Play help a serious workplace?
The Lumberton staff used Play as a playful, creative mindset. Their examples included an ice cream day for making the monthly goal, dressing up in favorite NFL or college clothing, wearing a favorite hat, and a Kick Off Event called Fun Day.
They also explained an important boundary: “We began to PLAY as a way to release tension. However, do not mistake play for unprofessionalism.” A playful mindset helped them work more creatively and improve problem solving. In other words, Play was not a demand that manufacturing become a party. It was permission to bring energy, curiosity, and better ideas into serious work while respecting other people.
That distinction helps leaders use play well. Play should lower tension and make it easier to look for a better way, not embarrass or exclude anyone.
How did Make Their Day rebuild everyday recognition?
The staff said that each employee welcomed others with a smile and a pleasant greeting. Compliments and teamwork became more common, and lending a helping hand to a neighbor happened more often and with ease.
This is recognition in a form that can travel across shifts and job titles. It does not replace fair pay, manageable workloads, development, or honest communication. It adds something those systems cannot provide by themselves: evidence that a person’s effort was seen by another person.
Gallup reports that effective recognition is honest, authentic, and individualized. It can be a personal note or a specific thank-you, not only money or a formal award. On a plant floor, that might mean naming the action and its effect: thanking someone for helping another cell, catching a problem early, or sharing an idea that made work clearer. The goal is not praise for its own sake. It is to show which behaviors help the team succeed and that the people doing them matter.
What does Choose Your Attitude mean after a difficult change?
The staff connected Choose Your Attitude with greater involvement in Lean Enterprise Across Disciplines events, greater involvement in workplace events, more appreciation, and pleasant smiles that showed gratitude.
Choose Your Attitude does not mean telling people to “just be positive” about layoffs, pressure, or a real problem. It means noticing what a person is bringing into a situation and choosing a more helpful response where choice is possible. Leaders have a special responsibility here because employees watch how leaders carry themselves during uncertainty. A leader who admits a hard truth, listens, and stays constructive gives others a better example than a leader who demands positivity from everyone else.
Choose Your Attitude means choosing a helpful response where choice is possible.
The practice works best with Be There. People cannot choose a helpful response if they are never allowed to name what is difficult. A manager can ask, “What are you seeing?” before asking, “What can we do next?” That combination makes room for honest information and forward movement.
How did the plant make the practices stick?
The Lumberton staff used shared phrases to turn the philosophy into accountability. When relationship issues came up, they said, “Let’s think FISH! for a moment.” If someone was not focused in a conversation, a coworker could ask, “Are you BEing THERE?” Make Their Day reminded people to show appreciation for extra effort and a job well done. Choose Your Attitude helped people remember that they could choose a more helpful and positive attitude when they got off course during the day.
Shared language makes an invisible standard easier to notice and spreads responsibility beyond the manager. It should be an invitation to reset, not a weapon for shaming someone.
The team also made one practice its monthly emphasis. Workforce team members were selected to come up with an activity that kept FISH! at the front of conversations, thoughts, and actions. During a month focused on Be There, they organized a food drive for people in need in Robeson County. Ice cream socials, carnivals, and games of skill reinforced camaraderie, while the staff stressed that activities mattered less than living the practices day to day and acknowledging one another when they saw those values in action.
That rhythm offers a practical lesson for any workplace: let employees help shape the effort. SHRM recommends giving employees a voice through surveys, feedback sessions, focus groups, or one-on-one conversations after a layoff. Involvement can restore a sense that people have a role in the organization’s future. A small group of energized employees can start the work, but the culture becomes stronger when the wider workforce can influence what happens next.
What changed at Actuant Electrical’s Lumberton operation?
The staff said the FISH! practices helped rebuild a spirit of trust and conflict resolution. Conflicts did not disappear, but the way people handled them changed.
They also said the practices dramatically improved the core metrics the Lumberton team focused on for Fiscal Year 2011 and changed how the business was run and perceived. One of the most important benefits, in their view, was a greater willingness among employees to adopt changes that made the operation more efficient and successful.
Changes during 2011 included adopting day-by-hour charts; winding, green, and final assembly lines in manufacturing cells; combining manufacturing equipment and personnel into one cell from two different operations; adopting a Kanban-driven supermarket for the subassembly cell; equipment setup reduction initiatives; reducing lost non-replenished parts produced for one-time builds; and a self-directed work team justifying, developing, and hiring full-time material handlers.
The staff concluded that the practices had changed the “DNA” of Lumberton culture. They described a culture of higher morale and dedication that helped the operation make implementation faster and smoother, raise safety awareness, decrease quality defects, increase overall efficiency and productivity, and make on-time delivery achievable.
The Lumberton staff said the FISH! practices changed the DNA of their culture, raising safety awareness, decreasing quality defects, increasing efficiency and making on-time delivery achievable.
Lumberton is one of many organizations whose results with the FISH! Philosophy have been documented, but its story is especially useful because it connects morale with the practical work of a manufacturing operation.
How to improve employee morale in your own workplace
Start by treating morale as a work condition, not a mood employees must fix. Ask what changed and what information people need. Explain decisions clearly, make time for questions, and address unmanageable workloads rather than covering the problem with a celebration.
Choose a few visible behaviors. Be There can mean listening without multitasking. Make Their Day can mean specific, timely appreciation across shifts.
Choose Your Attitude can mean naming a hard moment and deciding how to respond. Play can mean giving a team room to test a better idea inside clear safety and conduct boundaries.
Invite employees to create examples that fit the work. Ask what helpful presence sounds like on a shift, what recognition feels genuine, and what playful energy would remain respectful. Use a shared phrase to reset conversations and revisit one practice each month.
Gallup links stronger engagement with productivity, absenteeism, safety incidents, and quality defects. Morale often shows up in how people notice problems, help one another, and respond to change.
A stronger culture does not require pretending that conflict, pressure, or uncertainty are gone. It requires giving people better ways to meet those conditions together. Choose a few behaviors, make them visible, let employees shape them, and practice them often enough that trust can return through ordinary work.
Try the FISH! Philosophy with your team
If your team is working through low employee morale, layoffs, restructuring, or everyday tension, the FISH! Philosophy can give you a simple starting language for the conversations ahead. Try the FISH! Philosophy upgraded trial, which gives your team 30 days of access to the FISH! film and its digital guides so you can begin putting these ideas into practice together.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can a manager recognize employees without making praise feel forced?
Make the recognition specific, timely, and sincere. Gallup’s guidance says effective recognition is individualized, so ask whether the person prefers public appreciation, a private note, or another form that feels meaningful.
What should leaders do when employees do not trust a new morale program?
Do not ask for enthusiasm before addressing the reasons for distrust. Explain what is changing, invite questions, follow through on commitments, and let employees help shape the activities and behaviors that support the effort.
Can the FISH! practices work when a plant is under production pressure?
The Lumberton staff described using the practices alongside manufacturing changes and efficiency work. The practices are meant to shape how people listen, recognize effort, respond to tension, and approach problem solving, so they can be part of the work rather than an activity separate from it.
How can frontline workers take part in improving morale?
Give them a real role in defining examples, choosing monthly activities, and identifying behaviors that help the team. The Lumberton account shows how a small group of energized staff members can engage a wider workforce, while employee-input guidance from SHRM supports involving workers in shaping the future after change.
How should a team measure whether morale is improving?
Use more than a single survey score. Look for patterns in attendance, quality, safety awareness, willingness to adopt changes, collaboration, conflict handling, and delivery, while also asking employees what they are experiencing and whether leaders are following through.
