Improving your company’s revenue, productivity levels, and talent retention starts with employee satisfaction. Happiness increases productivity for your team members by around 12%. Imagine what you could do with a team of happy and dedicated employees?
Although most business leaders know that their staff members generally accomplish more when they’re happy, they don’t always realize just how significant the impact of poor satisfaction is.
According to the Gallup State of the Global Workplace report, around 85% of people are unhappy or dissatisfied with their jobs.
This dissatisfaction doesn’t just mean that you’re leaving money on the table in terms of productivity and performance. It could also mean that you’re actively losing money too. Here is how investing in your employees can improve your revenue.
1. Reduce Workplace Mistakes
When you’re bored, stressed, or dissatisfied at work, you’re not focusing on delivering the best results. Engaged employees follow every guideline carefully and produce work that is reflective of your company culture. Disengaged employees rush through activities as quickly as possible to get them over and done with.
Unfortunately, rushing through tasks and not paying enough attention to best-practices and processes often causes problems.
In the best-case scenario, you’ll get a minimum viable product from your employees’ work. This means they’ll deliver the basics of what you need, but nothing else. In a worst-case scenario, the work produced will be riddled with mistakes.
Mistakes harm your company’s reputation and risk the satisfaction of your customers.
Investing in tools that make your employees feel happier and more supported at work will reduce those unnecessary accidents. For example, if monotony is the source of disengagement, see if you can add automation tools to make the tasks more enjoyable.
2. Improve Customer Experience
Happy customers are repeat customers.
Although it’s important to constantly track down new clients for your company, there are few things more beneficial to your business than repeat clients. Repeat customers are much easier to convert than new leads. They’re also more likely to become advocates for your brand.
Disgruntled or unhappy employees aren’t paying as much attention to the way they approach clients. This can mean that they rub your customers the wrong way.
Even if your staff’s attitude is okay, they may not be engaged enough to go above and beyond for the customer in terms of support and service. This means that you risk losing customers once again.
Happy employees often pass their happiness off onto your clients instead. Focus on giving your team members plenty of positive feedback and affirmation when they work hard at supporting your clients. They’ll be more engaged if they feel appreciated.
3. Strengthen Company Culture
The people around us often influence our mood and behavior. Even if your other team members feel satisfied at work, one unhappy employee’s attitude could turn the entire environment sour.
That’s why it’s so important to recognize unhappy employees early. Prolonging the issue and not responding on time harms your company culture and team morale in more ways than one.
Dissatisfaction creates ripple effects among the rest of your team members. Soon, you end up with even more unhappy employees to deal with.
If other employees see that a dissatisfied employee is continuously slacking off or making mistakes without any repercussions, you’re sending a message that such behavior is tolerated.
Sadly, sometimes there will be no other solution but to let the problematic employee go. If you have done everything you could to turn the situation around and your employee is still not delivering, it’s probably in everyone’s best interest for them to find a new job.
Replacing an employee is a costly and time-consuming endeavor. However, in the long term, you’ll benefit from removing a team member who generates business losses or creates tensions in your team.
To prevent such situations, speak to your team members as often as possible. Send out satisfaction surveys to see how your employees are doing and have one-on-one conversations with people who aren’t thriving in their workplace.
This way, you can come up with strategies together that will support your team members in feeling happier at work. Remember, don’t penalize anyone for sharing their dissatisfaction with you.
4. Improve Creativity
Dissatisfied and unhappy employees rarely go above and beyond to share their creative ideas and thoughts with the rest of the team.
If your staff members aren’t happy at work, they may not be inspired by your business either. This means they go through their career just following instructions, but never delivering any input.
While it’s essential for employees to follow the rules and best practices, it’s also crucial for your staff to offer valuable input whenever they can. Your team consists of a diverse selection of people with different backgrounds and skills. Making the most of the unique knowledge shared among your employees is how you innovate as a business.
If you feel that your team members aren’t inspired or motivated at work, it might be time to invest in a little competition.
Use wallboards to showcase the figures and successes of your best employees to the rest of the team. Have people compete for points and award prizes to those who accomplish the most. A bit of fun competition can get your employees motivated again.
Invest in Team Satisfaction
Your employees are some of the most valuable assets that you have as a business owner. They give you the talent you need to complete crucial tasks, and the support required to deliver fantastic customer experiences.
Unfortunately, if your team members aren’t happy and engaged at work, they will not be providing the best results.
Take the time to regularly assess your employees and recognize how motivated they are before your team members reach a critical point that will come with a great cost for everyone involved.
About the author: Joe Peters is a Baltimore-based freelance writer and an ultimate techie. When he is not working his magic as a marketing consultant, this incurable tech junkie devours the news on the latest gadgets and binge-watches his favorite TV shows. Follow him on @bmorepeters
Dedicating time and resources to making employees feel satisfied isn’t just a nice thing for employers to do. It’s actually a smart business decision.