Does employee commitment increase business performance?
The Sears case history published by Harvard Business Review in 1998 provided the first robust, empirically based demonstration of the service-profit chain, indicative of the following: • Employee attitudes about their job and the company are the two factors that predict their behavior in front of the customer; • Employee behavior in front of their customers and the delivery of a particular customer experience directly influences customer attitudes, commitment and retention; • Customer commitment and retention directly influence financial performance. Research shows that it is the engagement and commitment of employees towards the brand, proposition and, ultimately, to the customer, that has a large impact on business performance: • Companies with highly engaged employees generated 200% higher three-year returns to shareholders than low commitment companies between 1999 and 2002; • Over the past five years, companies which employees rate as great places to work have shown 25% growth in
