Yes. As leaders, we should care if employees are happy. If we want to experience high engagement, low turnover, high productivity and authentic employee loyalty, we must create a culture of happiness. Happiness increases profits.
Entrepreneur.com editorial contributor, Eric Su, summed it up best with his statement, “They say that money can’t buy you happiness, but according to the data, happiness sure can buy you money…”. We share below a few of the statistics, facts and supporting evidence from business experts to back this powerful statement.
When evaluating the benefits of creatinga happy culture, the evidence is outstanding. Whether you look at your business from a perspective of “how can I reduce cost and avoid loss?” or if you look at your business from a perspective of “how can I maximize the talent & resources to increase profitability?”, you will find evidence that happiness is the answer.
For the Cost Reducers:
If you are not actively working to create a culture of happiness, how much is unhappiness costing your organization? According to Gallup Management Journal (based on a Spring 2001 survey), each unhappy worker costs a company around $13,000/year. In the same study, they concluded that 74% of US workers report feeling detached (unhappy) from their work.
We did the math! For an organization of only 100 employees at 74% unhappy employees costing $13,000/year/employee, the cost of unhappy employees is $962,000 annually. Wow!
For the Profit Maximizers:
What if you are actively working to create a culture of happiness? What is your organization gaining from the happiness culture?
Harvard Business Review states that happiness is the competitive advantage to bring increased productivity, innovation and creativity to your team. In fact, a decade of research proved that happiness raises nearly every business outcome: raising sales by 37%, productivity by 31% and accuracy on tasks by 19%.
We did the math! For an organization with $50M in sales, a happy culture will increase your sales to $68.5M in sales. Double Wow!
If these numbers don’t convince you, take a look at what Health Enhancement Systems concluded in their Culture of Happiness and Cost of Unhappiness document published in 2011.
Culture of Happiness and Cost of Unhappiness Conclusions
The research is clear – creating a culture of happiness can have a profound impact on an organization including:* Greater employee productivity
* Higher job satisfaction rates
* Increased retention rates
* Lower healthcare expenses
* Better cooperation
* Less absenteeism
* Improved response to change
* More commitment
What business leader wouldn’t want to create these types of profound impacts on their organization? We all would! Now we can…and we get to do it by simply finding our happy. (see next month’s blog – Where Is My Happy?)
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