Happy workforce really pays off

BELFAST BRIEFING:IF, BY chance, you are reading this before you go for a job interview here is some advice – start smiling, in fact smile a lot. Never mind about the CV at this stage, forget your well-polished answers and just think about projecting happiness.

Why? Because it could just land you the job you are after – although your chances will also improve rapidly if you live in Northern Ireland and you want to work in a customer care centre.

According to two separate pieces of research published recently, people in Northern Ireland are among the happiest in the UK, and Belfast is also the best city in the UK to find a call centre job.

The Office for National Statistics shows Northern Ireland has the highest score for life satisfaction (7.6 out of 10) compared to 7.5 for Scotland and 7.4 for both England and Wales. Northern Ireland also recorded the highest scores for the “worthwhile” and “happiness yesterday” questions.

Meanwhile, classifieds search engine Adzuna says “Belfast has three times the national average in call centre jobs, making it the most readily available industry for jobseekers”. Could this just be a happy coincidence?

Not according to Firstsource Solutions, the India-headquartered business process outsourcing company that has two centres in Belfast and Derry. Firstsource, which provides support to leading banking, financial, telecoms and healthcare organisations, is preparing to announce its next investment project.

Marketing director Fraida Silver says the happiness levels Firstsource has experienced in the North definitely has influenced its latest investment decision.

The Indian company employs 1,800 people in Northern Ireland.

“We first came to Belfast six years ago and it has worked really well for us and that is because of the people we have – they are happy, they are confident, they have got great empathy and Northern Ireland always gets very high customer satisfaction scores.

“If somebody is not happy – it becomes very obvious very quickly but we find in Northern Ireland people are happy to go the extra mile. They are not just going through the motions, they are very motivated and that is very important to us – the end result is everybody is happy,” Silver adds.

She said the company will definitely “be expanding in Belfast”, probably later this year, and is in the process of finalising the details and location.

So if a major global group like Firstsource is prepared to invest millions in Northern Ireland based on – among other things – the local “happiness” factor, shouldn’t other companies be able to capitalise on it?

Dr Robert Kerr from the University of Ulster thinks so but also believes it is a two-way street. He says it is also important companies create the right environment to ensure employees are actually happy at work.

Kerr, a lecturer in organisational behaviour, is also a director of Managing Wellbeing, a university-based research consultancy which focuses on helping companies ensure they have “happy, healthy and productive employees”.

He is lead co-ordinator on two research projects with the British and Irish governments investigating health and wellbeing at work.

Kerr believes there are “clear financial, legal and ethical reasons for addressing employee wellbeing” – happy people, according to Kerr, help organisations achieve success.

“When we talk about employee wellbeing, what we are really talking about is our employee health, both mental and physical. Improving employee well-being creates a healthier, more engaged workforce,” Kerr says.

He believes if companies are prepared to focus on their employees’ wellbeing, they will see big reduced sickness absence and staff turnover, increased employee engagement and increased productivity.

If it sounds too good to be true, Philip Cassidy, chief executive of Concentrix’s Northern Ireland operation, is more than happy to show you it in practice.

Concentrix is part of the Fortune 500 Synnex Corporation. It acquired Cassidy’s former Belfast based company, Gem, last September in an undisclosed multi-million pound deal.

Cassidy, who grew Gem from a start-up in 2000 to a business with estimated annual revenues of €19m a year, says: “When people walk around our facility in Belfast, they always comment on the fact our people are passionate and pleasant. That’s what makes the difference – we have happy people working for us.

It may be early days for the California-headquartered Synnex Corporation but every indication suggests they could be in line for a major “happiness” dividend from their gem investment in the North.

Improving employee well-being creates a healthier, more engaged workforce