The Employee Advantage: How Putting Workers First Helps Business Thrive

By Stephan Meier

‘One of the world’s greatest applied behavioural economists’ (Dr Katy Milkman) reveals how any organization can thrive by putting their employees first

At Columbia Business School, Stephan Meier teaches hundreds of students each year about what he calls the ‘human side of strategy’. One of his core research insights is that, despite the customer-obsession wave sparked by Amazon two decades ago, employees may well be more important to a firm’s long-term success than its customers. Yet strategy textbooks, corporate board composition and media coverage have not adapted to this new reality – the focus is still overwhelming on customers.

Unsurprisingly, alongside this imbalance is growing employee dissatisfaction and disengagement: more than 67 per cent of US employees, and more than 86 per cent of employees worldwide, report being not engaged in their jobs over the past 15 years. And the Covid pandemic only accelerated this trend: people are re-assessing what they want, resigning, striking, or calling for unionization in droves.

Meier is uniquely equipped to tackle this problem: he is one of the world’s leading experts at the intersection of behavioural economics and business strategy. In The Employee Advantage he combines the research backing of Nudge with the firm-focused practicality of Work Rules! to provide a comprehensive roadmap that any organization can implement to reap the profitable benefits that come from putting their employees first.