Why Your Business Should be Focused On Pleasing People, Not Clients

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How’s this for a revolutionary idea? ‘Don’t focus on pleasing your clients’. Sounds like madness, right? After all, satisfied, loyal customers are the backbone of your business – without people to buy your products and services, you wont be making an income… and without an income, your business is going to fold pretty quickly. But actually, you might be looking at this all wrong. The fact is, if you look after your employees, they will look after your clients!

Happy employees are good for business

The University of Warwick has discovered that happiness amongst employees leads to a 12% spike in productivity. In turn, improved productivity means that your staff are going to be putting in more effort and providing a higher-quality service to your customers than they otherwise would be.

And, it’s actually thought that the brain works better when we’re feeling positive too: we’re more adept at solving problems, and we even show higher levels of creativity. So, as happy employees are better at finding resolutions to problems and coming up with new services, products and ideas, you’d be wise to focus your efforts on pleasing the people working for you.

How to make your employees happier

Ultimately, it appears that a happy workforce equates to happier customers. As happiness is clearly very important, how do you help your employees to achieve it?

First, give your staff the right tools to do their job. There’s nothing more frustrating than a cumbersome, outdated work process that dominates a teams’ hours and saps their energy. Streamline the way you do things by using software like CIPHR hr systems, task management systems and up to date technology: fast internet, high-tech computers and a working printer is going to boost morale in a way you might not be expecting.

Secondly, make sure everyone is engaged with their work. Engagement and happiness are intrinsically linked. ‘Engaged’ employees will come to work with a spring in their step, enjoy the work they’re doing and be prepared to work as hard as they need to get a job done well.

Another way to boost happiness is to allow your employees to leave their comfort zones. Very few of your recruits will be satisfied doing the same thing over and over again until they retire. Instead, trust that they can push themselves to succeed in areas that are unfamiliar to them, taking ownership of their new tasks.

Leonard Glick (Professor of Management and Organisation Development at Boston’s Northeastern University) says that this “contributes to a feeling of ‘it’s mine,’ and most people, when it’s theirs, don’t want to fail, don’t want to build poor quality and don’t want to dissatisfy the customer”.

Finally, remember that employee happiness is something that rests with them, too. There are plenty of ways your team can boost their own happiness, such as working towards a common goal, meditating for a few minutes, or simply jotting down three things they’re grateful for at the end of their working day.