Employee Engagement: Because there is NEVER a Place for the Angry Young CPA

Happy employees increase your bottom line. Angry ones can destroy it.

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Employee engagement, and the lack thereof, is a recognized influencer on a company’s bottom line (Management Report, 2017). Gallup documented the corollary between employee engagement and organizational profitability as early as 2007 (Ott, B., 2007).

As Harvard put it in 2008:

“Loyalty is a direct result of customer satisfaction.

Satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of services provided to customers.

Value is created by satisfied, loyal, and productive employees.”

(Harvard Business Review, 2008)

Harvard goes on to tell us that the service-profit chain (SPC) is cyclical: Increased customer loyalty leads to greater profits, which in turn leads to a better corporate culture. This, in turn, leads to loyal, dedicated employees who work harder to meet their customers’ needs, which in turn leads to… Yep, you guessed it (Harvard et al., 2008).

Consider an example:

You go to Taxes Done Quick to get your relatively simple — 2 W-2s, a mortgage interest statement — income tax return filed. The CPA who sits you and your partner down at his (or her) desk is clearly tired.

Angry Young CPA sighs heavily when he asks for your bank’s interest statement and you don’t have it.

While he (or she) is filling out the rest of your tax return on the computer, the CPA is grumbling under his or her breath about long hours, slow servers, and the distinct lack of a nearby coffee shop, much less a McDonald’s to grab a quick lunch at during the day.

Your partner sees the Taxes Done Quick Angry Young CPA transpose 2 numbers from your W-2 and points it out to the beleaguered, unsatisfied, and clearly disengaged employee. AYCPA argues and insists the numbers are entered into the system correctly. When your partner politely insists, AYCPA stomps away to get a supervisor.

When the matter is resolved and the return is filed, you and your partner will receive a large refund, but you will also feel like you’ve been run through the wringer by the subject of a 1976 Billy Joel song.

Also, after all that grumbling and stomping, can you be 100% certain that all of your tax information was entered properly and that the IRS is not going to audit you?

Is that large refund worth the headache you just went through? Will it be next year?

…and when Taxes Done Quick loses your business next filing season and makes Angry Young CPA work even harder, will that employee be more engaged or less?

Service delivery is part of the value a customer experiences

And value experience is essential when a customer is choosing one product over another. This is doubly true in a competitive market where multiple choices of essentially the same core product are available. In the Taxes Done Quick example, the service being delivered is tax return filing. Right next door to Taxes Done Quick is Taxes Done for Insanely Large Fees.

Taxes Done for Insanely Large Fees offers the same service as Taxes Done Quick. However, as you glance through the glass storefront windows on your way back to your car after dealing with Angry Young CPA, you see smiling employees and customers. You notice a coffee machine in the back of the store. You watch a CPA showing a couple to the door and then head back to his desk after grabbing a sandwich and soda.

As you get into your car, you hear the couple chattering happily about the big refund and the excellent service they received.

They’re clearly not worried about the accuracy of their tax return. They won’t spend the next 12 months fearing an IRS audit.

You will.

Next year, you take your 2 W-2s, your mortgage interest statement, and that bank interest statement you will never again forget after being traumatized by an Angry Young CPA to Taxes Done for Insanely Large Fees. You have to wait a while for your appointment. Business is booming at Taxes Done for Insanely Large Fees.

You receive the same large refund, and yes, you do pay more, but you also walk out of the office knowing for certain that the IRS will not be banging down your door and that all of your financial information was entered accurately.

As you get into your car and turn back, you turn back and notice an empty office space where Taxes Done Quick used to be.

Cheers,

Cris

References:

Employee Engagement Impacts Bottom Line. (2012). Management Report, 35(10), 7-.

Ott, B. (2007, June 14). Investors, Take Note: Engagement Boosts Earnings; Companies with higher employee engagement levels enjoy greater growth in earnings per share, according to a Gallup study. Gallup Management Journal, NA. https://link-gale-com.fitchburgstate.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/A165368398/ITOF?u=mlin_c_fitchcol&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=b25b1c48

Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work. (2008). In Harvard Business Review (Vol. 86, Number 7,8, pp. 118-). Harvard Business Review.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.