Companies have become experts at understanding their customers. They map customer journeys, study their behaviors, and use predictive analytics to anticipate their needs with impressive accuracy. But when it comes to understanding their employees — the very people who create these customer experiences — most organizations still rely on intuition, superficial data, or generic, infrequent surveys.
Closing this gap is possible and powerful. We saw this up close at a clothing retailer with hundreds of stores across North America that had begun a transformation focused on the customer experience. Leadership knew that front-line employees would ultimately determine the success or failure of efforts to improve customer and store outcomes, and realized that motivation, satisfaction, and joy were key pieces of the puzzle. But it struggled to understand and act on employee needs at scale, across hundreds of stores.
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Our team — co-led by Debbie and Hubert and comprised of BCG consultants and HBS students — was given unrestricted access to the workforce: More than 90% of the retailer’s employees participated in a survey that explored career motivations, perceived effectiveness, task-by-task enjoyment, satisfaction, and how time was distributed among daily work activities.
We combine this detailed, large-scale data with our own observations from dozens of interviews and store visits. And unlike most organizational climate survey data, we are able to link individual responses directly to operational, customer and financial results for each employee and their respective stores.
These analyzes were built based on tools that apply customer understanding methodologies to employees. Using comparative statistical models and segmentation methods typically applied to customers, we identify relevant differences between employees: distinct segments of attitudes, each with their own characteristics, needs and performance results.
For the first time, leaders were able to see deeper into the minds of their employees—not just what they said was important, but what really drove their motivation and actions. And, crucially, they were able to connect these factors to specific outcome metrics such as retention, sales per hour, customer satisfaction and others.
See what our study revealed about employee happiness and performance, as well as how the retailer’s leaders took action to increase happiness at work.
How employee happiness drives performance
To measure joy, we ask, “Do you like your job?” We like this question because it’s intuitive and easy to answer, and it’s flexible, since what creates joy at work can be different for everyone.
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A clear pattern emerged from the analysis: joy at work is a performance driver. Employees who reported the highest levels of happiness were significantly more motivated and much less likely to seek another job. This is critical in retail environments, where turnover can exceed 60% per year.
Employees who enjoyed their work had 25% higher hourly sales over several years. Stores with more highly satisfied employees also delivered a better customer experience, reflected in higher NPS scores (customer recommendation about the store) it’s CSAT (customer satisfaction).
Joy, it seems, left its mark on practically all the results that mattered most to leaders.
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The analyzes also revealed something that most employee surveys fail to capture: emotional needs, such as feeling valued and supported, mattered more than functional needs, such as salary, benefits and hours, for retaining and supporting talent.
When asked directly about what was important in a new job, functional needs naturally dominated. But more sophisticated correlation analyses, similar to those used with consumers, showed that the factors that actually predicted retention and performance were things like learning and growth, feeling valued, doing meaningful work, and having clear opportunities for advancement. Emotional connection was not a “differentiator”; was essential.
Furthermore, advanced employee segmentation work has brought even richer nuances.
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Eight distinct employee segments emerged, each with their own motivations and performance outcomes. Each segment presented specific needs, experiences, and pain points that were important to understand to improve your joy and motivation at work.
Half of the workforce fell into segments of greater happiness and higher performance:
— Aspiring Apprentices: employees at the beginning of their careers, motivated and attracted to the company in search of professional development and growth. They report a high level of satisfaction and motivation and represent a small segment of the total.
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— Professionals committed to growth: mid-career employees who see a long future with the company. They are highly effective, satisfied with their development so far and value growth and work-life balance.
— Dedicated balancers: employees who balance caring responsibilities for other people with a strong commitment to their role. They are motivated by flexibility and purpose and want to continue developing.
— Certain Veterans: Full-time, highly motivated, experienced employees who often aspire to leadership roles and thrive on challenge and structure.
— Experienced Connectors: Most of them are professionals in more advanced stages of their career, deeply connected to the brand and who enjoy interacting with customers. They have the highest sales among all segments and demonstrate strong loyalty and satisfaction with their current role.
The other half focused on segments with lower joy and lower performance:
— Style Finders: young, part-time employees, attracted by the brand and fashion, but who feel limited in their growth and undervalued.
— Offline Explorers: younger employees who accepted the job due to the flexibility of their schedules, as they balance other commitments, such as studies.
— Stagnant Winners: motivated mainly by income, cover different age groups and present the lowest levels of joy, satisfaction and perception of opportunities.
Employees in the last three groups tended to be younger, work more part-time and have more functional motivations.
They valued flexibility or income, but often felt undervalued, underdeveloped, or disconnected. Their unmet emotional needs were reflected in lower satisfaction, weaker performance, and greater intention to leave.
Company leaders found this insight especially surprising: The best-performing sales segment was made up largely of part-time, later-career employees who loved the brand, enjoyed dealing with people, and found deep meaning in connecting with customers.
These employees were not looking for promotions or perfect schedules. Instead, they wanted respect, a sense of community, and working with purpose — and delivering exceptional results.
The study also revealed where joy was created and where it was drained. Employees consistently found energy in customer interactions, training, and development.
However, they often spent much less time on these activities than they wanted or expected. In some stores, salespeople spent less than 40% of their time with customers.
Behind-the-scenes tasks, administrative work, and repetitive processes took employees away from the very activities that increased joy and performance.
This misalignment represented a powerful opportunity to redesign workflows—and it was both an alarming and valuable discovery for leadership.
Finally, the team quantified the financial potential of moving the workforce to segments of greater joy.
Even a one percentage point increase in the proportion of employees with high satisfaction had a significant impact on sales — around 0.25 percentage points of total annual revenue.
Scenarios showed that, by retaining more employees with high satisfaction, converting those with lower satisfaction and hiring more adherent profiles, the company could capture an annual sales increase of between 5% and 15%. Joy was not just culturally beneficial; it was economically convincing.
c.2026 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. Distribuído por New York Times Licensing
