by Marshall Hill, Research Associate

In today's economy, it might be easy to discount metrics such as employee satisfaction and commitment, but one might want to think twice before taking such a position. Leaving for another position is not the only way employees can affect the bottom line. Research has shown that satisfied employees are more committed to their job resulting in better attendance, decreased tardiness, decreased turnover, better performance and improved productive behaviors. These positive employee behaviors may be enough for some to accept the importance of employees' opinions, but others might be saying "show me the money" or "what does this mean for my organization."

In this light, current studies across different industries have reported that employee satisfaction influences customer satisfaction and the financial bottom line of an organization. For example, a 2009 study of the healthcare industry linked quality human resource practices to employee satisfaction, process performance, customer satisfaction and organizational financial performance. This study is particularly enlightening given the fact that process performance can be a matter of life or death in the healthcare industry.

In another study conducted over a two-year period of 306 retail store managers, 1,615 employees and 57,656 customers, a relationship was shown between store manager satisfaction, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and the dollar amount spent per customer. The results of this study demonstrate the chain of affect that an individual employee can have in affecting the bottom line of an organization.

What does this mean for your organization? Employee satisfaction is not a metric that should only be examined when it is convenient; it should be regularly monitored and reacted to as if the bottom line depended on it.