As an innovation leader, you’re responsible for the performance and well being of those who work with you and for you. By focusing your attention on your employees and their overall happiness within your organization, you vastly increase the potential to remain ahead of the pack.

The benefits emerge in a simple chain of causes and effects:

Business owners put their positive focus on their employees.

The employees then put their positive focus on the customers.

The customers then keep their positive focus on the company and its products or services.

The company can then focus on pleasing investors, giving pay raises, and hiring more people.

The organization stays on top, and everyone is happy.

The seven direct benefits of keeping your focus on your employees and stakeholders include:

1. Increased Productivity

Happy, highly engaged employees are more productive. According to Gallup, engaged employees outperform disengaged employees by 21 percent. This sounds like a lowball figure, but a 21 percent increase is nothing to sneeze at. When you pay attention to your employees, they feel a greater connection with the company. They’re more likely to believe their work is important, and therefore they’ll work harder.

2. Better Staff Retention

High turnover has a disruptive effect on your business and services, and adds an additional expense in terms of recruiting, onboarding and training new employees. You also pay for the lost opportunity costs until their roles are filled. According to a Hay Group study, highly engaged employees are 87 percent less likely to leave your company than disengaged employees.

3. Fewer Sick Days

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that productivity losses linked to sick days and absenteeism cost employers $225.8 billion annually in the United States, or $1,685 per employee. Sick days cause disruption to your operations and can put an additional burden on engaged staff. Compared to disengaged employees, highly engaged employees have fewer absence days—an average of 3.5 days each. Promoting safe and healthy work practices boosts profitability and productivity among employers of all sizes.

4. Lower Stress

As Rebecca Maxon wrote in FDU magazine, three out of every four American workers describe their work as stressful, and occupational stress has been defined as a “global epidemic” by the United Nations’ International Labor Organization.

The economic consequences are significant. Workplace stress costs U.S. employers an estimated $200 billion per year in absenteeism, lower productivity, staff turnover, workers’ compensation, medical insurance and other stress-related expenses.

As a innovation leader, you can lower the stress felt by your employees by focusing on them as individuals and ensuring that you’re inspiring them, connecting to them, helping them adapt to change, and respecting them. Not only are engaged teams more productive, they are also less stressed and stressful to other employees. And that’s a scenario that helps create a much healthier working environment.

5. Enhanced Organizational Brand

Your staff function as brand ambassadors for your organization, and what they say about you has a direct impact on your reputation. Employees who are happy and speak well about your company, either informally or by posting on Facebook or Glassdoor, enhance your organization’s reputation for innovation and its attractiveness to both potential employees and prospective customers.

6. Increased Customer Satisfaction

Richard Branson said, “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” No truer words were ever spoken. Your employees will treat your customers exactly the same way as you treat them. If you follow the LeaderLogic Model and inspire, connect with, adapt to, and show respect for your employees, they’ll do the same for their customers. If you want happier and more satisfied customers, you need to cultivate satisfied and engaged teams.

And remember—this does not mean having a mere “open door” policy. Few employees are ever going to just drop into your intimidating office to say “hi.” You need to get out and get around. In the old days it was called management by wandering around. It’s still true today.

7. Higher Profits

While your efforts at engagement and making connections with your employees and stakeholders makes people feel good, which could be reason enough, they will also please your investors or stockholders by producing higher profits (or if you’re a nonprofit, helping the organization fulfill its mission). A 2008 study by Towers Perrin revealed that over a 12-month period, organizations with engaged employees saw an increase in operating income of 19 percent, compared to decrease of 33 percent in companies with disengaged employees. A 51 percent gap in profitability between companies with engaged staff and those with disengaged staff is significant!

Focusing on your employees and ensuring that they are highly engaged shouldn’t just be an empty slogan. It should be an active part of your innovation strategy, because engagement produces multiple benefits that in turn help drive customer satisfaction, growth, and profits—the goals of every company.