Whenever a company succeeds, you might hear leadership credit the employee. And this may sound like lip service, but the employees in an organization can truly make or break its success.

But there’s a flip side to that coin: When employees are disgruntled, they can take a company down.

If your company isn’t employee-centric, and most aren’t, you run the risk of failure.

There are a few things that can go wrong with your overall business when employees are unhappy.

Morale is Contagious

We all worry about people getting sick and spreading illness within the company, but we should be just as worried about a disgruntled employee. When one person has an especially negative opinion of their workplace, the bad attitude can spread quickly. People who are unhappy are often vocal about their complaints, and they can bring others down with them.

Fortunately, good morale is also contagious. But if you’re noticing a few disgruntled employees, it’s important to take swift action. Do what you can to lift morale and talk to your unhappy employees. Sometimes, issues of morale can be easily resolved. If not, you may consider taking further action.

Unhappy Employees Create a Hostile Work Environment

When people are unhappy at work, they tend to get a little grumpy with coworkers. This can create a toxic and hostile work environment. It’s true that a few bad seeds can ruin it for everyone.

Think about it this way: when you encounter someone who is especially rude, are you more likely to have a good day or a bad one? Just like overall company morale, one hostile employee can ruin everyone’s day and create a snowball effect where everyone is acting hostile.

How to Keep Employees Engaged and Productive

The first step in creating an engaged and productive work culture begins before you hire your first employee.

The application and interview processes are an essential part of building the right team that can help propel your company towards success.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the responsibility of hiring, you can help it go more smoothly by standardizing the process.

Create a standard application process, request that applicants utilize a resume builder with a specific template to keep things uniform, and create a list of interview questions to ask every candidate.

With a standardized process, you can cut back on a lot of time spent sifting and sorting, and you can spend more time with the right applicants asking the targeted questions.

After you have your team in place. You can keep morale high by creating habits of acknowledging employee successes. And help them by providing growth opportunities and supporting work-life balance.

The work-life balance is a major issue for many people. And you can encourage a healthy balance with family events and flex time.

Think about all the things you’ve ever wanted as an employee and decide which are reasonable to offer to your team.

If you want to build a successful business, you’re going to need to start by hiring the right employees and doing what you can to keep morale high.

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