Good morning, everyone. It’s Green Apple Slices. This is John Garrett coming to you with another short episode to get your week started. Thank you so much for hitting subscribe on whatever app you’re using to listen and for going to greenapplepodcast.com for where you can see all the articles and all the guests that I’ve had on, on the Wednesday episodes that are the longer ones. Every Monday, I always get your week started by bringing in the Accountants Groups Leader for Canada, for Sage, and she’s in London. Rachel Fisch. How are you?

Rachel: I am, so it’s good afternoon, John.

John: It is good afternoon. Yes, you’re from the future.

Rachel: No. Today’s rehearsal day for Sage Sessions London which is taking place tomorrow so I’m really excited to be here for that and then I’m packed full with meetings and training and lots of fun stuff for the rest of the week.

John: That’s awesome but yeah, but I just love getting together and then chatting through an article and this one is on Forbes and it was by Allan Kohll and it was “Budget-Friendly Tips to Boost Employee Happiness.” I was like what an accounting group doesn’t love budget-friendly like wow, that’s like a coupon.

Rachel: What accounting group loves happiness?

John: There we go. Sage does. I’ll tell you that much but yeah, it was pretty alarming. I mean you always hear the stats of how many people are disengaged percentage-wise but what that leads to, disengaged workers 37% higher levels of absenteeism, 49% more accidents, 60% more errors, that means your company is way less productive and public companies have a 65% lower share price over time.

Rachel: Yeah, like it actually affects your revenue. That’s crazy, yeah.

John: Totally. I mean it totally does. These are relatively inexpensive budget-friendly ways that you can have a huge impact on your bottom-line.

Rachel: Yeah. We’ve talked before about it doesn’t need to be expensive that you don’t need this huge expensive programs to be launched at the company and then staff to maintaining them and the whole thing so I really like that these are just super easy really practical things that you could start implementing like today which is pretty awesome.

John: Yeah, absolutely. One of the very first one that he lists is the green apple message totally is just nurture social connections. Just make it easy for people to feel connected on a human level not just on a work-role level.

Rachel: What? You need to get to know the people that you work with?

John: Robert Half did a study that showed that people who have good relationships with their co-workers are two and a half times more likely to be happy at work. A quote that I like to give when I do my keynotes is Tom Rath in his book Vital Friends found that people with three close friends at work are 96% more satisfied with their lives.

Rachel: Wow.

John: So that’s an insane stat. Not just your work but your life and just three friends. I mean that’s not even hard.

Rachel: I just want one, John. I’m looking for the one.

John: That’s right. We’ll start with one, Rachel. We’ll start with one. But I mean that’s a simple thing. It’s an easy thing, it’s encouraging people to do that, it’s setting the tone at the top, it’s leading by example, and that’s awesome for sure.

Rachel: The one that stuck out to me is a few down from there which is express gratitude. Seriously, it does not take a lot of time and energy to say thanks. If you email somebody, you ask for something, you get what you’ve asked for, email them back and thank them. It really doesn’t take a lot of time or energy to do that. I say email because I’m working with people all over the world but if it’s somebody in your office, walk over and say thanks. It really doesn’t take a lot but it genuinely means so much.

John: Yeah absolutely. I mean it really does because I mean it just shows people that you care. That’s awesome but if you guys want to see all the other examples that they add and a lot of really good ones in that article —

Rachel: There are some good ones, yeah.

John: Definitely go to greenapplepodcast.com. You can see the links there to all the articles that we talk about every Monday and yeah, again, hit subscribe so you don’t miss those and follow us on Twitter, @FischBooks so you can get some pictures of London and @RecoveringCPA and you just hit me at home or @GreenApplePod for the podcast. So yeah, check that out. So yeah, but have a great time in London and I’m excited to hear about it when you come back next week.

Rachel: For sure. Talk to you later.