The ROI of positivity

As we ease into the new year, leaders like you are no doubt in the beginning stages of implementing plans to maximize the profitability and growth of their organizations. You’ve asked yourselves the hard questions and put in the time to address them. How can we modify our product and service offering? How can we strengthen our brand? How can we maximize employee performance?

These matters can often be complex, layered, and rigorous – and for good reason. Creating tangible improvements in the cold, hard numbers and statistics that drive success is rarely easy, and always requires extensive thought and consideration. But we want to offer an aspect of driving performance that is refreshingly simple and warm – positivity.

Positive environments create happy employees. Happy employees are engaged employees. Engaged employees lead effective teams. Effective teams create world-class organizations. The differences in performance between an organization with a positive culture and organizations with a toxic, negative, or even neutral culture truly can’t be understated. Let’s dive into the numbers to get an idea of what kind of return on investment you’d be getting from taking the measures necessary to create a positive culture.

To start off – happier employees are more productive by default. You may recall from Joe’s most recent Wisdom on Wednesday that happy employees are 31% more productive than unhappy ones, according to research conducted by Shawn Achor. We also know that happier employees are more far more engaged with their work with significantly lower rates of absenteeism, thanks to studies done by Emma Seppälä.

In another article, Seppälä and Cameron cite studies by the Queens School of Business and Gallup which show that disengaged employees generate 18% lower productivity, 16% lower profitability, 37% lower job growth, and 65% lower share price than normal – an overall and comprehensive decrease in performance.

Brittanny King writes about the other side of that coin, noting that companies with happy employees outperform their counterparts by a factor of 20%, with happier salespeople creating 37% more sales over normal, and engaged teams proving 21% more profitable. Interestingly, King further writes that companies that increase their employees’ engagement by 10% can realize an extra $2,400 in annual profits per employee – which, obviously, could add up to a lot depending on the size of your organization.

It’s clear that happiness is positively correlated with engagement, and engagement is positively correlated with the hard measures for success – productivity and profitability. Employees are happier when they’re a part of a positive culture that keeps them fulfilled on a daily basis and satisfies their needs.

Cameron, Kim and Seppälä, Emma. “Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive” [Article]. 2015, December 1. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2015/12/proof-that-positive-work-cultures-are-more-productive [Accessed December 11, 2023]

King, Brittany. “36 Statistics on the Importance of Employee Engagement” [Article]. 2021, August 30. Lorman. https://www.lorman.com/blog/post/36-statistics-on-the-importance-of-employee-engagement [Accessed December 11, 2023]

Kuhel, Beth. “To Increase Productivity: Work Less, Get Happy” [Article]. February 2015. Shawn Achor. https://www.shawnachor.com/project/huffington-post-to-increase-productivity-work-less-get-happy/ [Accessed December 11, 2023]

Seppälä, Emma. “Positive Teams Are More Productive” [Article]. 2015, March 18. Harvard Busines