By Ryan Ashton
When prioritizing happiness, businesses often put the needs of their clients and customers ahead of their employees.
It’s simple: if customers aren’t happy with your service, they’ll go elsewhere.
But it’s easy to forget that your employees have the same option too. If they’re unhappy working at your company, they could start looking for another place of employment.
According to the Work Institute, the direct (resignation, replacement and training) and indirect (lost engagement and productivity) operational costs from employee turnover adds up to an average of 33% of an employee’s base pay. That means, for one minimum-wage employee leaving, it’s around $5,800 out of your business’ pocket.
Having happier employees leads to decreased turnover—saving you not only in costs, but in the time and effort it takes to recruit.
Here are 4 more reasons why you should make sure your workers are happy and engaged.
Positivity breeds productivity
Happy employees are far more productive at work—and the numbers back it up.
One Forbes study showed that happy employees were more than 20% more productive than their less enthused counterparts.
Especially in a fast-paced and customer-facing industry such as the service industry, higher productivity leads to decreased operational costs and scheduling efforts. Effectively rostering the right amount of staff—all energized and engaged—will create more effective output levels compared to scheduling a higher amount of employees that are disengaged and dragging their feet to get through their shift.
Happy employees show up
It’s intuitive: if you make your workplace an environment your employees want to be in, then you’ll experience a boost in shift attendance and a reduction in absenteeism.
It’s estimated that employees who report being happy at work take 10 times fewer sick days than those who report being unhappy. Especially in the service industry, boosting employee happiness will save you the stress and costs of filling in last-minute shifts or paying employees overtime. And for the star employees who pick up a shift after a no-show, it’ll reduce the outcome of being overworked and burned out.
Makes a Feedback Loop for Your Business Work
Happy employees have more initiative and are keen to find ways to contribute to the overall success of your business.
As the customer-facing point of your business, they’re positioned to relay key, direct customer feedback on your product or service. Keen to help, they’re also more likely to ensure that a customer’s feedback follows the appropriate channels. For example, if a customer is dissatisfied with a product or service, an engaged team member will take the initiative to ensure a complaint is directed to the appropriate department or person in order to ensure a customer finds a resolution.
This kind of feedback loop is extremely important for keeping on top of ever-changing consumer trends and evolving customer demands. It enables organizations to make small amendments that can have long-lasting impacts on revenue and customer retention.
Happy employees, happy customers
At the beginning, we noted a tendency for businesses to put their customers’ satisfaction first. Well, as the eyes and ears of many of your customers, employee satisfaction can lead to that customer satisfaction.
Richard Branson is someone who knows a thing or two about running a successful business. He also knows what it’s like to have a business fail. So when he advocates that looking after your staff is a key factor in retaining customers, we’re going to take his word for it.
If you look after your employees and have a healthy and happy work environment, your staff will naturally project that to your customers. Yes, a great product or service is key to ensuring your customers keep returning, but great customer service is just as important.
