RYANAIR chief executive Michael O'Leary said this week that, if he had known that being nice to passengers would make the budget airline more money, he would have done it years ago.

This might be dismissed as just another wisecrack from the non-publicity-shy Mr O'Leary. And it certainly had the qualities of a laugh-out-loud remark.

Mr O'Leary, visiting Glasgow Airport for the launch of new flights by Ryanair, declared: "We were always known for being somewhat abrupt and not that nice to passengers, but last year I had my Damascene conversion and I'm going to be much nicer to everyone now. If I'd known it would make us more money, I'd have done it years ago."

However, while certainly attention-grabbing, these remarks were also a perhaps belated acknowledgement of a simple but crucial business truth from Mr O'Leary, who has enjoyed great success by packing planes with people who in many cases might not be making the journey if fares were higher. And Ryanair certainly made money during its "abrupt" phase.

But businesses are, generally, likely to make more money by being nice to their customers. Happy customers are often likely to be a source of repeat business, and to spend more money.

There is obviously sometimes a balance to be struck between the quality and cost of customer service. Too many businesses focus on the latter these days, to their long-term detriment.

And, if businesses want to be successful, it is crucial that they should be nice not only to customers but also to their employees. This is, lamentably, another simple truth lost on far too many businesses.

This truth applies to the treatment of employees in all sectors, and at all levels within businesses.

The economic times are fairly grim, and the UK's belated, stuttering and unbalanced recovery appears to be losing momentum, but that is absolutely no excuse for in-work poverty.

At the danger of pointing out the obvious, it might be worth stating at this point that, in a developed economy such as the UK, poverty should be unacceptable whether it is affecting people in or out of work, and that whatever government is in power should be doing everything it can to eradicate it.

In this regard, it is extremely disappointing to see the damage done by savage welfare cuts from the Coalition Government, for example the additional poverty created by the bedroom tax.

And, on the corporate scene, it is always discouraging to hear stories from people on zero-hours contracts about how they have to make themselves available for lengthy periods, often at unsociable hours, and will only be paid if their employer decides it has work for them.

This combination of having to juggle home life with the prospect of very few, if any, hours of often lowly-paid work is simply not acceptable.

It was good to hear Stuart Patrick, chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, declare recently that consideration with members of how to tackle the problem of in-work poverty would be one of the priorities for his organisation in 2015.

This will include looking again at Glasgow Chamber's stance on the Living Wage, with Mr Patrick believing that this is not an easy issue.

He highlights the difficulties that the likes of pubs and restaurants might have in paying the Living Wage, and the fact that some other chamber members are advocates of ensuring this wage rate should be the minimum on offer. The UK Living Wage rate was in November raised to £7.85 per hour.

Whatever the chamber's stance becomes, it is good to see that Mr Patrick is passionate about trying to tackle in-work poverty.

The Scottish Government produced a summary of evidence on in-work poverty earlier this week.

This shows that more than half of children living in poverty in Scotland are growing up in households where at least one person is in employment. It also reveals that the proportion of those in in-work poverty is increasing gradually. The evidence also shows that, for many, moving into work does not necessarily mean moving out of poverty.

As well as being unacceptable in a developed economy, there are also big issues for companies if their employees are living in poverty. If workers are having to worry about paying bills and making ends meet, employers may well not be able to benefit from the full potential of these people.

Businesses and government must work together to eradicate the blight of in-work poverty, and ensure these often hard-working and talented employees are able to get on with their jobs without having to worry about squaring the household finances.

In a wider context, companies must treat their employees with actual respect, rather than merely paying lip service to the notion through stated policies.

This is something that, sadly, appears to have been lost on far too many employers in an era in which management appears somewhat curiously to have been turned into a profession in itself.

Managers, with some exceptions where individuals are experts or highly-experienced in the fields in which they work, are there mainly to enable the people they oversee to achieve their potential. They should not be there just to come up with yet another reorganisation, where this is change for the sake of change, or a cost-cutting programme that might damage the long-term prospects of a business.

And, crucially, they should not forget their role as facilitators, particularly the onus on them to provide those who report to them with what they require.

And the permanent threat of redundancy, which has in recent years been faced by many in the banking sector and many other industries in the UK, is hardly conducive to great productivity.

While there appears to be a growing imbalance between the remuneration of those at the top and what the general workforce is paid in the UK, it is generally the employees rather than the bosses who are making the money for businesses.

Those businesses that treat and reward their employees well, and create the conditions in which they can fulfil their potential, should have a far better chance of long-term success in today's highly-competitive environment.

Maybe, in terms of a reminder of this simple truth, the private sector could take a look at Glasgow's simple marketing slogan, "People Make Glasgow", which was so evident at last summer's Commonwealth Games.

All the private sector needs to do is change one word: "People Make Businesses." And then remember this.