Recent Updated #13

This blog post is going to be focused around a recent article I read on The Economist titled, “Employee happiness and business success are linked”. This addressed a fascinating topic, and one that was discussed several times in many of my economic courses. The idea behind this is clearly stated and that is: businesses do better and ultimately make more money when their staff is happier. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. Employees are the backbone of any company. If someone’s employees are not treated well, it could lead to disrespect, slacking off, violating company rules, and more. Therefore, it is crucial for employees to be happy working to succeed.

I can speak from personal experience and say that at all the jobs I have held, when my boss gives me the freedom to make my own decisions and is respectful and kind, I have been much more inclined to put my best effort forth and do everything correctly because I respected and enjoyed working for my employer. This just simply makes sense.

In the previously mentioned article, it discusses a study done by Christian Krekel, George Ward and Jan-Emmanuel de Neve. The authors used Gallup and studied nearly 1.9m employees across 230 separate organizations in 73 countries. The variables they studied were: customer loyalty, employee productivity, profitability and staff turnover. They ended up concluding that there was a positive correlation between employee satisfaction and customer loyalty, which shows that when employees are happy, customers return. It also found a negative correlation between employee satisfaction and staff turnover, which of course means that when employees are more satisfied, they are less likely to leave their jobs. This saves money and time for employers as they will not have to hire and retrain new employees frequently.

The article then referenced the Human Relations Theory. This theory, in summary, says that higher employee satisfaction leads to higher productivity. In the end, high productivity is what every company strives for. It leads to more efficiency in a company and ultimately, more money. Therefore, I agree with the ideas in this article that treating employees well is extremely beneficial to success. Like previously stated and as most people could agree, working for a respectful company pushes you to work to the best of your ability.

Source:

Employee Happiness and Business Success Are Linked. 2019. The Economist, The Economist Newspaper, www.economist.com/business/2019/07/28/employee-happiness-and-business-success-are-linked.