The Fundamental Cost Of Unhappy Employees
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Unhappy employees are members of the workforce that are no longer engaged or motivated in their job both mentally and emotionally. These employees, according to Gallup’s ‘State of the Global Workplace’, are;
“busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day they undermine what engaged co-workers accomplish”
This can have an adverse effect on the business in many ways and Gallup perceive that this phenomenon (disengagement) has cost US companies $300 billion a year. The cost of unhappy or disengaged staff can be far reaching and Gallup has identified 8 areas that this marvel can affect.
1. Customer Loyalty/Engagement
Those dissatisfied with their jobs can be a bad representation of an organisation. Carrying a negative attitude and inability to want to help customers and co-workers, these unhappy employees can be detrimental in a customer care department.
2. Profitability
Motivated personnel drive growth and revenue by achieving company targets. Demotivated staff are the opposite and strive to promote pessimism in the organisation. A sales team that are dispirited can lead to missed targets, lower overall scores for the department and bad customer interaction ensuring that prospective or current clients will not consider the company to do business with in the future.
3. Productivity
Demotivated staff lack the innovation and creativity that engaged workers demonstrate. They find short cuts in their job leading to lower performance overall, which can dissuade others as targets are not met.
4. Staff Turnover
In companies where disengagement is high the turnover can be significant. This can be caused through talents not being realised or capitalised on and lack of employee feedback or role descriptions. Hiring people who fit with the culture of an establishment and who will work towards the goals of the organisation are more likely to stay long term and remain motivated in their positions.
5. Safety Incidents
In the construction and manufacturing industries among others safety incidents are higher in companies that demotivation is high in. This can be due to the lack of communication between management and subordinates or scarcity of training initiatives.
6. Wastage
Most commonly heard of in the customer service industries, but evident in all industries. This includes the measure of how much time is wasted on breaks, lunch, sick time, training. Reasons for wastage can be lack of respect for values or bad process design by indifferent management.
7. Absenteeism
High absenteeism is common in unenthusiastic corporations due to lack of fit in the organisation. People who do not fit into the culture of an establishment or work towards the aims and objectives of the company tend to give less thought into leaving management short by calling in sick. This can cause a knock on effect as shortages of personnel can lead to stress and discouragement among the remaining members of staff, creating a circle of negativity.
8. Quality
Doing the same job day in, day off can be monotonous and cause demotivation. Without the drive to create high quality products/services, defect rates rise and productivity goes down. To reduce this, companies can introduce job sharing or job rotations to move people around the business which will educate the workforce on the whole organisation as opposed to just one area in the organisation.
There are many ways to prevent the above issues in an establishment but first the organisation must measure the level of disengagement. The cost of disengagement can cause your company a lot more damage than you think.
In short:
“People want to come to work, understand their jobs, and know how their work contributes to the success of the organisation” (Baldoni, 2013)
But instead people view employment as “more often a source of frustration than one of fulfilment” (Gallup, 2013).
