How much do you hate your job? Some facts about employment

By TruePublica: Last summer, a blog post written by Jim Clifton, the chairman of Gallup (the US research-based, global performance-management consulting company) entitled, the ‘World’s Broken Workplace’ told us some startling facts about our workplace and employers. So just how bad is your job compared to everyone else’s?

 

According to Gallup’s World Poll, many people in the world hate their job and especially their boss. While most of us probably agree that that is probably the case for many – the extent of the problem is really quite an eye-opener. “My own conclusion is that this is why global GDP per capita, or productivity, has been in general decline for decades,” said Clifton.

Employees everywhere don’t necessarily hate the company or organisation they work for as much as they do their boss says the report.

Only 15% of the world’s one billion full-time workers are engaged at work. It is significantly better in the U.S., at around 30% engaged, but this still means that roughly 70% of American workers aren’t engaged.

The reality is that from a global population of 7.2 billion, approximately 4.7 billion or 65% are classed as working age (aged 15-64) and from the perspective of Gallups findings and Clifton’s comments, just 150 million worldwide and fully engaged and enthusiastic about their work lives. The productivity losses worldwide, as a result, are absolutely enormous.

Clifton continues: “What the whole world wants is a good job, and we are failing to deliver it, particularly to millennials. This means human development is failing, too. Most millennials are coming to work with great enthusiasm, but the old management practices – forms, gaps and annual reviews grinds the life out of them.”

 

“The significant change is one of attitude. Gallup defines millennials as people born between 1980 and 1996. And they are from a different planet than, say, baby boomers. Baby boomers like me wanted more than anything in the world to have a family with three kids and to own a home — a job was just a job. Having a family and owning a home was the great American dream.”

“Millennials, on the other hand, place “my job” equally or even ahead of “my family” as their dream. So because their life is more focused on work, they need to draw more from their work environment. They have their best friends at work — including best friends who are customers. They want meaningful work and to stay with an organisation that helps them grow and develop.”

You can see the problem. The world has changed for the workforce, but not for the people who manage them.

Gallup’s analytics from 160 countries on the global workplace, came with a stark conclusion; those organisations should change from having command-and-control managers to high-performance coaches. This is because millennials demand development over satisfaction. They really want an ongoing conversation in place of annual reviews. They really need strengths-based discussions over weakness-based “gap” discussions that, in the end, produce zero results.

Clifton has some strong words for business leaders:

“World productivity has been in general decline for far too long. If this trend isn’t reversed immediately, it means the end of civilisation. I know that sounds dramatic, but you tell me how it all works out when the dangerously low number of good, full-time jobs as a per cent of the population continues to destroy us?“

 

In Britain – it is not quite as bad as it is in America or for that matter, the rest of the world.

New research from CV-Library reveals that over a third (39.7%) of Brits confess to disliking their current job.

Lee Biggins, founder and managing director of CV-Library comments: “As we approach the end of the year, many workers begin to consider whether it’s time for a career change, perhaps even making work-based resolutions for the year ahead.”

There are some variances across the country

• Sheffield – 56.7% dislike their current job
• Liverpool – 51.6% dislike their current job
• Brighton – 50% dislike their current job
• Bristol – 48% dislike their current job
• Southampton – 47.1% dislike their current job
• Newcastle – 44.4% dislike their current job
• Nottingham – 42.9% dislike their current job
• Manchester – 41.9% dislike their current job
• Bournemouth – 41% dislike their current job
• Edinburgh – 40.6% dislike their current job

 

What this research does not highlight, however, is the difference between disliking their job and disliking their boss.

In Britain, the number of people actually working from the ‘working age population’ is one of the lowest in the developed world at just 63.7 per cent. Only France and Finland come lower at 62.2 and 62.3 respectively.

And just to add a little more stress to the workplace, Britain is set to have the worst wage growth of any wealthy nation next year, ranking behind Italy, Greece and Hungary, according to an analysis by the TUC.

The UK is forecast to come bottom from 32 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development wealthy nations for wage performance in 2018, according to the study of OECD figures.

Probably time to have a look at that old CV and give it a bit of makeover!

 

 

 

 

 

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