I recently re-read an article by Stefan Stern in the 23 Feb 2010 issue of the FT, which describes research done by MacDonald’s in conjunction with Professor Paul Sparrow of Lancaster University Management School. The work covered 635 MacDonald restaurants and the 26,000 people who worked there.

They found that the branches where staff attitudes were mainly positive received 66 per cent more visits than the negative ones. Also, sales at the happier branches were around 30 per cent higher. Strikingly, they found that the happier branches were predominantly staffed by older people; in these, staff reported that interpersonal relationships were good and that the people at work were like a supportive family. Not only does this research throw new light on the retirement age debate, it adds to the growing volume of evidence that a great place to work (soft issues) is strongly associated with higher company performance (hard cash).