The end goal of every business initiative is always increased profits and growth. In order to accomplish this, we invest in a variety of things. We go all out on marketing the brand for all its unique features, we hire the best of resources, come up with the most suitable strategies and what not! But of what use will any of these investments be if your business suffers from employee apathy? Not much, really.
It pays, literally, to acknowledge that your employees are the foundation of your brand. Contrarily, disengaged, demotivated and apathetic employees will never take ownership for their jobs or even feel the need to do justice to their role, which in a customer-centric world can have you packing your bags in no time at all.
What is Employee Apathy?
It is when your employees are indifferent to their jobs, the company, its spirit, and everything relating to their role. They lack motivation and initiative, not because they are lazy but because they see no reason to put their best foot forward at work.
There is no sense of ownership, trust, reliability or loyalty within such employees. If such a scenario is rampant in even a few employees of a certain brand, it could spell absolute disaster in due course of time. Employee apathy drains the organization of its sense of belonging and slowly kills the spirit of the organization.
How do you know if your employees are apathetic?
Well, quite simply by interacting with them on a regular basis. As the head of the organization, it is your responsibility to ensure a happy, productive and inspiring work environment. If you are not sure about how effective a face-to-face chat might be in terms of getting honest feedback, survey your employees every now and then. There are tons of options to assess employee engagement.
Such a template could fetch you answers that your employees might otherwise refrain from sharing with you lest you hold their honesty against them. Show your employees that their feedback is vital to you and take actions immediately to address their concerns immediately. Organizations that have the least employee engagement are known to have maximum employee apathy too!
What can you do to make apathetic employees more engaged?
Lots! Start with understanding why he or she feels apathetic towards their job? It could be anything like hostile work environment, issues with co-workers, lack of growth or opportunities in their role, lack of transparency in the team, or even a very demanding job.
This is why you have to make sure that you have a solid employee engagement plan in place! This addresses not just the employee apathy problem, but also cultivates a culture within the organization which in the long run can hold the place together. Culture is of paramount importance when it comes to building a happy, inspiring workplace.
Once you have spotted one or more of the reasons for this apathy, address the issue and tell the employee that you are willing to go that extra mile to make him feel inspired to be there. If it is something that is beyond your control, then offer as much support as you can to help them out.
Why should I care if my employees are happy or not?
Ok. For multiple reasons. Not only should you care about your employees being happy to work with you but also make a priority because a lot of your profitability is associated to their happiness. Don’t believe us? Read this.
It shows how Increasing employee engagement investments by 10% can increase profits by $2,400 per employee, per year.
That’s not all. The overall productivity at your organization will soar when you invest in employee engagement because research also shows that Highly engaged employees are 38% more likely to have above-average productivity.
So making sure that you don’t lose out on a chunk of profitability owing to employee apathy is not just unwise but also unsustainable. Build a company that nurtures its employees so that they are inspired to pass on that happiness onto their customers who in turn will be forced to keep coming back to you with their money because no other place makes them feel so good!
Nice article. Certainly there is lots of evidence that employee happiness helps profitability, though which is the cause and which is the effect does not seem to have been proven yet. And while the article implies that employee happiness drives customer happiness, there is no particular evidence for this. See my own article and research at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/employee-happiness-drives-customer-so-discussion-draft-fitzgerald