Introduction
Let me tell you a little story. Randy, who works for Gunderson as an equipment designer, is an unhappy employee. He has worked for Gunderson for 16 years, first starting out as a AutoCAD designer, drawing freight trains for manufacturing, and moving into an equipment designer position, designing braking systems for freight trains. He has been unhappy in his job for the whole time because of the divide that he feels with his boss. He doesn't have a university degree, and his boss respects him less than the people who have an engineering degree, even though he has studied all of the theory related to braking systems, and is among the best AutoCAD users in his group. Because he feels that his boss respects anyone who has a university degree more than him, he feels unhappy that he doesn't get more recognition in his job.
Unfortunately, this story is all too common, because studies have shown that an estimated 22 million workers are presently "actively disengaged", or extremely negative in their workplace. This costs the economy up to $300 billion dollars a year in productivity ("New Book" 1). This paper shows the linkages between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction and retention and business outcomes, and demonstrates how employee attitudes can be measured and improved upon.
Part A describes linkage research, and presents evidence about how employee satisfaction correlates with customer service, market share, revenue generation, and the bottom line. Part B outlines methods to measure employee attitudes such as the use of employee surveys, and how to put measures into place to improve employee satisfaction.
Part A: Linkage Research
Introduction
What are the linkages between employee attitudes about their workplaces and customer ser ...