The Correlation Between Employee Happiness and Employee Productivity
Why does employee happiness matter? And can an employee’s level of happiness be prioritized during the course of a day, a week, a month, or a year in corporate environments where the business bottom-line is the driving factor behind performance?
The answer at Aye Finance is a resounding yes.
Yes, employee happiness can – and should – be prioritized for the simple reason that happy employees are crucial for creating strong companies with a driven and productive workforce.
What’s Happening Inside Aye
At Aye Finance, we’re always privy to a constant stream of employee success stories – we’re proud to say that our team members are on a permanent path to outperforming their set targets, which is really the reason behind our recent milestone of having disbursed INR 1000 Crores in loans to Indian MSMEs.
And the reason driving their performance is a happy, well-balanced life between home and work, where they feel supported by the company, the company leadership, and Aye’s approach to employee welfare.
A quick chat with with some of our team members verifies this. We spoke to two of our Branch Managers – Mohd. Akil and Yogesh Kuntal – who work at the Meerut and Bharatpur branches respectively.
Akil and Yogesh have both worked in the financial services sector for over 10 years, and at Aye Finance for upwards of 3.5 years. With a team of 29 people working with him, Akil manages one of the largest Aye branches in the country.
Meanwhile, Yogesh oversees the Bharatpur branch where nearly 40% of his customers are from the agriculture sector, and the rest comprise of trading and manufacturing.
Behind the Scenes: Meet the Individuals
As individuals, Akil and Yogesh share a number of common interests. They both love playing cricket, they both love spending time with their families, and they both love coming to work, every single day.
Incidentally, their tenure at Aye Finance has been the longest tenure in a financial services company for both, Akil and Yogesh.
In a time when changing jobs every couple years is the norm for most people, Akil and Yogesh certainly stand out. When asked why they’ve stayed on with Aye Finance for close to 4 years, once again they both have similar things to say.
Akil – who joined Aye Finance as a Loan Advisor and quickly worked his way up to a Branch Manager – says he enjoys work because of the support he receives.
“I’ve never felt like we have a complicated hierarchy here,” say Akil. “We can approach our seniors whenever we want. And we have the room to develop strong relationships with our teams.”
Yogesh Kuntal also echoes this sentiment. “Aye Finance acchi jagaah hai kaam karney ke liye (Aye Finance is a good place to work at). The support of the leadership is really important because we can’t deliver high quality work without their guidance” he says.
Building the Right Balance
Enjoying work and the workplace is just a small part of an individual’s well-being and happiness. A well-balanced life also requires due attention paid to personal growth, family, constant learning, and taking time off.
In this aspect, once again Akil and Yogesh stand apart as they make a concerted effort to dedicate their time outside of work to their families and their personal growth.
While Akil enjoys watching movies and spending his time off with his 2-year old daughter, Yogesh makes it a point to prioritize his health and exercise.
“I wake up between 4:30 – 5:00 am everyday because I like to go exercise early in the morning” says Yogesh. “And in the winters, I play cricket every morning from 7:00 – 8:00 am before I go to work.”
Both branch managers fall back on their personal lives and personal routines to unwind after work. Yogesh also enjoys taking day trips to Mathura with his coworkers and his family. “It’s the closest place for us to go watch movies together!”
Connecting the Dots
Akil and Yogesh’s experiences – within the company and outside – highlight the importance of leading balanced lives, with equal attention paid to professional and personal growth, respectively.
Their experiences also drive home the need for company leadership to rally around their teams to provide them with the right training, tools, and guidance at regular intervals, because the whole ecosystem of an individual needs to be nurtured holistically.
As an organization, we prioritize making the time to celebrate our team’s accomplishments. Our frequent celebrations do more than increase our team’s morale – they create a sense of community and ownership for each employee, which ultimately benefits the organization’s welfare.
At Aye Finance, we firmly believe this: whether companies connect with their teams through constant training and development, celebrations, or by reinforcing the need for frequent breaks from work, investing in happy employees is the way to ensure steady internal progress and growth.
