Let’s chat about something that often gets forgotten in the daily hustle of work. The rockstars of the corporate world: your team. They’re not just numbers on a spreadsheet or cogs in a wheel, they’re the pulsating heart and soul of what you do. They’re the dreamers, the doers, the most important thing keeping the show on the road – and that’s why good leaders focus on employee wellbeing. Let’s understand what that means.
The MBA equation
Let’s start with happiness. Why should you be making a fuss over employee happiness? Yes, it’s s good karmic thing to do and happy employees make for a nicer workplace (nobody wants to sit next to Mr/Mrs Grumpy). There’s also an important statistical correlation between happy employees and productivity. Happy employees are more productive. That alone is justification enough to start investing in their wellbeing (or more office parties), but it doesn’t stop there.
Sunshine carries forward, and happy employees are communicate their happiness to your customers in a myriad of ways. Wether that’s through bigger smiles, more enthused conversations or just warmer interactions, it doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that your customers will notice, and that results in customers that are happier with you. Undeniably a good thing for any business, because happier customers are customers that are willing to pay more and purchase more frequently.
Honestly, nobody should need to read three separate university studies to know that this is true. If you enjoy working with someone, you’ll be willing to pay more when buying from them & you’ll be more likely to listen to them about changing your purchasing habits. It’s just common sense. By creating a pleasant workspace where your team is happy, you’ll be improving your business performance & chances of hitting your KPIs.
“Happy Employees -> Happy Customers -> Improved Sales”
– Kameel Vohra
Growing Together: Is a real thing
So how do you sustainably create happier employees? It’s not just about pizza & beer, there are only so many office parties people want to attend & it gets old quickly.
Investing in training your team demonstrates that you care about their professional development. Frontline workers training is a great example of how this can have a direct impact on performance and motivation. But you can invest in broader skills development, things that are more aligned to what individuals actually want to do themselves. That allows them to grow the way they want to (Happiness++), and provides opportunities for you to bring a more diverse range of expertise & input to your business.
Innovation, great ideas & diversity of thought
Radical innovation doesn’t come from everyone doing the same thing & being trained the same way. By prompting your people to learn new things, you’ll enable them to think differently and come up with new ideas. Ideally speaking you want to get to the point where they’re letting creativity run wild and you’re getting some really weird thoughts on how to change things.
Whether the ideas are on how to improve go-to-market motions, product changes, or process enhancements doesn’t really matter. There are numerous studies that show companies that innovate have higher revenues, larger market share and are more likely to succeed.
Wellbeing is everybody’s business
An often overlooked aspect of people management is wellbeing. No I don’t mean yoga and bean bags, it’s about adding an element of care to your culture. This is different for every team. It’s about listening and understanding how you can make peoples lives better.
The best example I’ve ever heard is from a (very large) company that ran a night shift. They had a really high turnover of female staff, and couldn’t figure out how to stop people leaving. After talking to many of the night shift ladies, they realised that there was a social problem. Neighbours were seeing young ladies go out late every night dressed nicely (for work), and then coming back very early in the morning. People were getting misconceptions about the nature of their work, and the ladies didn’t like the associated social stigma. They solved the problem by issuing (very prominently) branded T-Shirts to all night shift team members.
Sometimes it’s about accepting that there’s a school pickup time, others it’s about realising that group night calls are tiring (and perhaps unnecessary). Well being starts with listening and understanding what your team needs.
TLDR: People matter
Investing in the happiness of your people pays dividends. Whether you see returns through improved customer service, increased revenue, more innovation or just karma. The evidence (including most of reddit’s malicious compliance threads) show that taking the time to listen and take care of your employees is a wise move for any leader.