5 Reasons your Bottom Line NEEDS Happy People

Us HR folk spend a lot of time talking about the importance of leaders investing in their people. But what we’re often not so good at, is explaining the reasons why this element of business leadership is so important.

Here we’ve taken some key statistics and broken them down so that you, the business leader, can get a solid understanding of the reason why investing in your people is fundamental to the success of your organisation – but don’t just take my word for it, these stats speak for themselves:

1. Revenue Growth

In a study carried out by engageforsuccess.org it concluded that organisations with high levels of engagement (what we like to refer to simply as “happy people”), compared to those with low engagement (unhappy people) experience 2.5 x greater revenue growth.

So boiling that right down for you, if your people are happy and engaged with what your business is out to achieve, your business will have substantially greater revenue growth than businesses with fewer happy people.

2. Increased Profit

Studies also show that businesses with happy people experience double the profit of those organisations with lower levels of engagement. If that alone doesn’t make you stop and think about whether you’re genuinely doing the very best by your people, what will?!

3. Fewer Workplace Accidents

Data shows that when businesses spend time developing their people, communicating with them openly, and rewarding them fairly (just some of the simple elements that go towards making a happy workforce), they experience 62% fewer workplace accidents.

This will be particularly interesting for you if you have a manufacturing business, as you will be well aware of the impact that just one accident can have in terms of sickness absence, disruption to customers, worry and concern from the rest of the team and so on.

4. Fewer Leavers

Businesses that report high levels of engagement experience 40% fewer leavers within their organisation. That’s fewer disengaged people working their notice and money saved on hiring replacement staff; not to mention the indirect costs of training a new starter and them only being able to add real value to the team when they become completely proficient in their role (usually around 6 months into the job).

5. Higher Productivity

If you focus on building a happy workforce, not only will that make your business a more enjoyable place to be, but it will also be a more efficient one as well. Data shows that people who are happier at work, are 18% more productive than their unhappy counterparts.

That means you could potentially need fewer people, meaning substantial savings from your bottom line as your team is able to get through more work, quicker.

It also means that your customers will be happier as they’ll receive a more efficient service from your people, which could in turn result in increased sales from existing customers and increased customer advocacy when they shout about how great your team is.

All in all, the case for investing in your people is a pretty compelling one. So, you may be wondering what we mean when we talk about investing in your people. Well, here are some simple steps you can take to start building a happier workforce:

Get the basics in place – people like to know what is expected of them, so ensuring all your people have up-to-date contracts of employment and HR policies in place will ensure they all know what is expected of them while working for your business. This is often overlooked, along with ensuring people are paid correctly – but if you don’t have these basics in place, nothing else you do as an employer really matters very much, as your people will always have a certain amount of uncertainty around their employment.

Busy leaders and business owners often forget just how important it is to communicate and keep close to their people – especially when they’re not necessarily all in one place as we are right now. So check in regularly; make sure your people have objectives they understand, and also that they’re working towards achieving them in the way you and your customers expect.

Talk about development, and then take action. Find out what your people’s career aspirations are, what they’re interested in and how you can help them to achieve these things. And remember, development isn’t all about training courses – these can be valuable, but often it’s on-the-job experiences like getting involved in different projects, that make a bigger difference to people’s enjoyment in their role.

And finally, of course if you need some help with any aspects of leading your people, whether it’s from the basics of people documentation to HR advice, or team development, The HR Consultants can help; so get in touch for a no-obligation chat – we’re pretty nice to work with, so I can guarantee it will be an enjoyable experience 🙂