Happy employees make happy customers. Sound familiar? We’ve all heard this in business. But the weird thing is no matter how much a motto like this is hammered into our heads, many of us as leaders, management and business owners still do not follow it. Why oh why is this?
Here at Half a Bubble Out we value employee happiness, engagement, and company culture a lot. The owners Kathryn and Michael Redman make this their priority and have discovered that indeed the famous business motto is true. Happy employees really do make happy customers. And guess what? They make a lot of other things more awesome too like higher profits, better reputation as a business and low employee turnover rates just to name a few.
Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Still, sometimes it seems like we are one of the few businesses, especially in the “dog eat dog” world of marketing that is implementing such a culture. If only they knew the benefits of having their business that way, every company would treat their employees, as they should be. Company culture, employee engagement, employee happiness, happy business, work support, strong leadership, communication—these are just a small lump of the words that make up a happy place to work and an overall happy, successful business.
Well, let’s get some actual numbers to back up this theory, right? This blog post by Office Vibe [which is an awesome site that shares the same philosophy about work that we do here at The Bubble] goes through what it really means to have a happy workplace, how to implement it and why—backed by actual statistics.
We definitely suggest you give their blog post a read but be careful because you’ll get sucked into all their other awesomely amazing blog posts.
Making Your Employees Happy Could Save You Millions. Here's Why:
Posted by Jacob Shriar, Office Vibe
Life is too short not to be happy.
When I look at the data (and there’s a ton), I’m shocked at what I see. There are way too many people that are unhappy at work. Not only that, but there are way too many employers that seem to not care.
Before we dive into the data, does it not make common sense to have happy employees?
Does it not make common sense to just treat people with respect? If you treat them with respect, don’t think you think they’ll reward you and work harder for you? How can it be that so many people don’t understand this?
There’s a book that was written, called Make More Money by Making Your Employees Happy. I recommend everyone read it, and potentially send it to your boss to read. It really proves with case studies how making employees happier ultimately leads to higher profits. For example, here’s an excerpt from the book:
A Jackson Organization study shows that companies that effectively appreciate employee value enjoy a return on equity & assets more than triple that experienced by firms that don’t. Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” stock prices rose an average of 14% per year from 1998-2005, compared to 6% for the market overall.
What happens is that crappy managers cause stress to their employees, by micromanaging them, or by simply not respecting them.
Not only does this lead to employees not being happy, but it has major effects on their wellbeing, and workplace absenteeism is a major problem.
We’re talking about $84 Billion in lost productivity. The American Psychology Association tells us that stress is a major cause of illness today, and often workplace stress is the primary cause. Stress is pretty much unavoidable, so we all need to do everything in our power to manage stress.
