Why It's Important to Keep Employees Happy

By Jimmy Zhang

Is productivity slow and don’t know why? The answer could be right in front of you. While keeping employees happy may seem like an obvious strategy to running a healthy business, it is one that is often overlooked. This article by the Houston Chronicle highlights some of the benefits of keeping employees happily engaged at work that should be top of mind.

Hiring new employees takes time and effort. The time it takes to advertise, interview and on-board these new hires takes time out of your day and creates a lot of extra effort that could be focused on sales. Happy employees tend to stay long-term, which reduces many of the costs associated with hiring new workers. How often do you find yourself looking for new employees?

Disgruntled workers show. Unhappy employees will often translate to poor customer service. Because of the high level of interaction between customers and employees, even the slightest comment or action could be misrepresented as rudeness and a bad attitude, ultimately resulting in a negative consumer experience. Next time a customer complains, try and find out if it’s the result of an unhappy employee.

Personal productivity and performance has been demonstrated to be higher when employees are satisfied with the work they are doing and are happy with the company they are at. They tend to work quicker, more efficiently and with a higher level of engagement and focus. This can lead to new ideas and initiatives that could help your company grow. One way to achieve this is by setting small, attainable goals for your workers.

A study done by Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Steven Kramer, an independent researcher, recorded electronic diary entries from professionals that dove deeper into understanding the correlation between happiness and productivity. One clear pattern was the link between an employee’s happiness and their engagement with their work, achieved when progress is being made with meaningful tasks.

Reduce training and hiring costs associated with high turnover by keeping your employees happy, increase positive word of mouth with exceptional customer service and motivate workers to be innovative and efficient with meaningful work and you’ll likely see the effects of these efforts reflected in your bottom line.