With about half the nation’s employees thinking their jobs are “at risk,” it can be difficult to keep them happy about showing up for work.

David Clayman, a clinical and forensic psychologist at Clayman & Associates in Charleston, says first and foremost, employers must be honest about their workplace situations if they want to keep high morale.

“If the employer is worrying about things and trying to put on a happy face, that can only go on so long,” Clayman said. “But you don’t want employers going to the other side with doom and gloom and the sky is falling.”

According to The Society for Human Resource Management, the percentage of employees who describe their jobs as “slightly at risk” rose from 31 percent in January to 35 percent in June, and workers who believe their jobs are “not at risk” dropped slightly to 47 percent from 51 percent six months ago.

Clayman said honest and realistic conversation lays the perfect bricks on which to build good employee morale.

“The next piece would be fairness,” he said. “Recognize that if you have to let somebody go, they will feel it’s unfair. “Everybody else will be relieved, but there’s also what they call survivor’s guilt, so if you do have to downsize, you have to do it knowledgeably.”

Clayman said unity and teamwork that keep business moving also go a long way in building employee morale, as does sharing information.

“People need information,” he said. “But employers need to make sure the intent of what they say is understood by everyone, because good information can become misinformation.”

He also said little touches go a long way.

“When things are good, reward folks — bring in lunch,” he said. “Have your employers know your employees and recognize them for what they’re doing; for their birthdays, even if it’s an everybody-in-July kind of thing, or being sure the boss knows whose kid won first place at a swim meet this weekend.

“The fact that you care about them as people is really important.”

Clayman said a touchy subject could be bosses keeping an eye on their own financial well-being.

“This is not a good time for a boss to go out and buy a Cadillac SUV unless the company understands what’s going on,” he said. “Putting a happy face on when there isn’t a happy face is kind of stupid, but celebrate victories.

“Positive feedback is really important.”

Katherine Karl, interim division head for management, marketing and MIS at Marshall University, agreed with Clayman that honesty is the best policy.

“If layoffs are a possibility, you really do need to have open and honest communication,” Karl said. “Because in the lack of communication, there will be a gossip mill and that’s just going to increase the stress and have a negative impact on productivity.”

Karl said she has read and personally believes that people don’t leave companies or paychecks, they leave bosses and supervisors.

“People want to feel appreciated, and that’s where recognition comes in,” she said. “They want to feel competent, that they’re good at their jobs and appreciated for doing that.

“Anything a company can do to make people feel appreciated can help morale.”

Karl said managers often think recognition once a year is sufficient, but recognition needs to be constant, she said. “The culture and the climate is important, too,” Karl said. “People enjoy going to work when they have co-workers that they can trust, so employers need to eliminate the politics and the back-stabbing and all that sort of thing.”

Karl said if employees have a low level of trust in their supervisors or among themselves, it may be impossible to impact morale in the short run.

“It takes time to change a toxic organizational culture and it may require a change in the cast of characters,” she said. “The problem is that once trust is broken, it is very difficult to restore, especially when the people involved are the same.”

Karl said it’s also important to allow employees to share their concerns and to suggest anything that might help the workplace situation.

“When the axe falls, the worst thing is when people have the feeling that nobody told them, or they weren’t given the opportunity to do anything about it,” she said.