Killer Analytics: Top 20 Metrics Missing from your Balance Sheet

Chapter 17

The Workforce Happiness Index

WHY AN ORGANIZATION MIGHT TRACK THIS

Questions Answered

• Do employees look forward to coming to work?
• Are employees happy with their boss?
• Is the work employees do satisfying?
• Do employees enjoy the people they work with?

Why Is This Information Important?

If you run a call center that operates 24 hours a day and employees spend most of that time taking calls from angry customers, can you really expect the employees to be happy? If you run a garment plant in downtown Los Angeles that makes $200 blue jeans and your employees are working their fingers to the bone all day, can they be happy in a job like that? As an employer, do you even care? First of all, I think as an employer you should care a whole lot about the happiness of your employees. If labor is a big cost item on your balance sheet, employees’ satisfaction with their jobs probably influences every other measure of performance. Study after study has demonstrated the links between business success (sales, growth, profits, etc.) and employee satisfaction. Other studies have shown that the work environment and work itself do not have to be pleasant or interesting for employees to be happy. Yet many executives with air-conditioned offices, access to healthy food, a comfortable chair, and an intellectually stimulating job where they get to sit down all day are far from being happy with their fat salaries and cushy jobs.

Organizations have entire departments and a corporate officer ...