In my mind, feeling love from the customers ranks right up there with feeling love from the employees. But does employee satisfaction have anything to do with company success?
I’m curious what the connections between happiness and job satisfaction, and performance and productivity are. Let us go to our friend, Science, for the answer to this one.
Happiness and Performance:
“Happiness at the person and group level is related to performance, customer satisfaction, safety, attendance, and retention,” according to a 2010 study by Cynthia D. Fisher.
Satisfaction vs. Emotional Exhaustion:
Organizations under-perform when they have employees who feel emotionally exhausted. However, research from this same study by Taris and Schreurs from 2009 states that job satisfaction is not as important as the emotional well-being of employees. Employees being unable to perform due to emotional exhaustion is more detrimental to company performance that their being unwilling to perform.
The bottom line from these three studies are that YES, happiness does affect performance and in many ways, and that NO, oganizations are not highly affected by employees levels’ of satisfaction, but rather they ARE affected by levels of their emotional exhaustion.
So, now the question is: how does a company inspire their employees to love their job and feel productive? How is it possible to increase happiness in the office while mitigating emotional exhaustion? Check back next week for Love: Shifting Office Culture.
