Good communication improves employee and customer satisfaction – research consistently shows a strong correlation between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Economics experts report from their global study that “Higher employee wellbeing [satisfaction] is associated with higher productivity and firm performance.” They found “correlations between employee wellbeing, employee productivity and firm performance across all industries and regions.” Writing a 2019 article for the World Economic Forum, George Ward and Christian Krekel from the London School of Economics, and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve from University College London, reported on their work conducted with Gallup consultants on a meta-analysis of 339 independent studies accumulated by Gallup, including the wellbeing and productivity of 1·8 million employees and the performance of 82,000 business units, in 230 independent organizations across 49 industries in 73 countries.
The study by Ward, Krekel & De Neve decided that:
“Employee satisfaction has a substantial positive correlation with customer loyalty and a substantial negative correlation with staff turnover. The correlation with productivity is positive and strong.”…”importantly, higher customer loyalty and employee productivity, as well as lower staff turnover, are also reflected in higher profitability of business units, as evidenced by a moderately positive correlation between employee satisfaction and profitability.”
Also, in a classic study, retail giant Sears Holdings Corporation (annual revenue around US$25 billion), found every 5% increase in employee attitude scores brought a 1-3% increase in customer satisfaction and a 0.5% increase in revenue. Good communication played a significant role in greater employee satisfaction.
Improved employee satisfaction is also associated with improved financial performance in three studies by Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance at London Business School. In a previous position as finance professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania he also conducted the third study, below:
An Australian survey in 2007 found similar results. Conducted by Professor Nigel De Bussy from Curtin University, the study found that companies actively engaging in stakeholder orientation activities achieved stronger financial performance, with a correlation of 0.84 for employee programs compared with the correlation for customers (0.36), suppliers (0.35) and communities (0.32). The correlation of financial performance with shareholder orientation was minimal at 0.08.
These studies don’t actually prove that happier employees create happier customers and therefore higher profits, but they show a very strong correlation, which is almost the same thing.
Although we know good communication improves employee and customer satisfaction, the difficulty in discussing the impact of employee satisfaction/happiness/wellbeing/gratification/engagement/commitment/association is that it is not possible to demonstrate that any of these can be directly proven to be a fundamental individual cause of performance improvement in business units or the overall organization. As an example, Edmans cautions in his above article, “How Investing in Intangibles – Like Employee Satisfaction – Translates into Financial Returns” that “a correlation between employee satisfaction and stock returns need not imply causation.” Also, the title of Edmans’s paper, “The Link Between Job Satisfaction and Firm Value,” reflects the same problem – the link is strong, but this is not necessarily clear proof that it is the single direct cause or even one of the most critical causes. A further example – Oswald, Proto & Sgroi say in their paper that various “forms of evidence…are consistent with the existence of a causal link between human well-being and human performance.” But absolute proof can’t be clearly shown.
After the confident headline of their above article – (“It’s official: happy employees mean healthy firms”), Ward, Krekel & De Neve drop back from cause to correlation: “Our work is suggestive of a strong, positive correlation between employee wellbeing, productivity and firm performance. The evidence base is steadily mounting that this correlation is in fact a causal relationship (running from wellbeing to productivity).” [Words in italics are my emphasis.] They admit a causal relationship can’t actually be proven yet.
The terms employee engagement and employee job satisfaction are often used interchangeably, but there are actually differences between the two concepts. An article by the national US Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) states that research reveals there is some overlap in the drivers of engagement and satisfaction, but there are also key differences in the components that determine each:
Engaged employees might report feeling focused and intensely involved in the work they do. They are enthusiastic and have a sense of urgency. Engaged behavior is persistent, proactive and adaptive in ways that expand the job roles as necessary. Engaged employees go beyond job descriptions in, for example, service delivery or innovation. Whereas engaged employees feel focused with a sense of urgency and concentrate on how they approach what they do, satisfied employees, in contrast, feel pleasant, content and gratified. The level of employee job satisfaction in an organization often relates to factors over which the organization has control (such as pay, benefits and job security), whereas engagement levels are more directly controlled or significantly influenced by the employee’s manager (through job assignments, trust, recognition, day-to-day communications, etc.).
“Being satisfied at work is a weaker predictor of business outcomes than engagement and lacks the two‐way reciprocal relationship characteristic of engagement,” is a conclusion expressed by Robertson-Smith & Markwick in their 2009 review, “Employee Engagement: A review of current thinking.” The same point could be made about happiness.
Whether on staff or consulting, you can initiate a program to increase employee satisfaction, because this will lead to positive performance regardless of its relationship with employee engagement. This is because we implicitly know good communication improves employee and customer satisfaction.
Ensure you compare employees and customers on the same basis. For instance, compare customers and employees from the same city or from the same branch if you are involved in a branch-based organization.
If you engage in this activity you will be able to show senior management the communication link between happy employees and happy customers.
Employee surveys offer great potential for review and follow-up. Experienced survey firms like SurveyBot automate the process of collecting feedback from respondents, which makes it a productive process. SurveyBot provides helpful details on how to efficiently handle these types of surveys. This leads to valuable workplace improvements. Unfortunately, conducting and following up an employee survey is often handled rather poorly. For instance, I ran a university PR course for 6 years, and every year the administration circulated a detailed survey to staff containing questions about satisfaction and asking for responses on a range of matters. Not once did the administration provide any feedback of the results to staff. It was a frustrating waste of time to participate. Employers who do handle this process well find they get valuable feedback.
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