Determinants of Employee Happiness and Their Impact on Customer Happiness: Empirical Evidence from the UAE Banking Industry

Abstract

For any business, customer happiness is vital for retaining loyal customers and achieving organizational goals. One of the many ways customers can be happy derives from whether the employees are happy in their workplace. The purpose of this research is to investigate a set of employee-happiness determinants that can influence employee happiness, which, in turn, affect customer happiness in the UAE banking sector. They are trustworthy leaders, open and frank communication, opportunities to learn, true justice, positive feelings and proper remuneration The research adopted the quantitative approach and collected empirical data from a survey distributed to customer-service employees working in a group of UAE banks. A set of 187 valid questionnaires were used for the analysis using SEM-Smart PLS. The results revealed a significant insight into how employers can keep employees happy, so, that they are focused on ensuring that customers are happy with the banking services delivery. Moreover, the results prove the importance of trustworthy leaders, open and frank communication, opportunities to learn, true justice, positive feelings and proper remuneration in influencing employee happiness. It was also found that employee happiness significantly impacts customer happiness in the UAE banking sector.