Nearly a quarter of UK office workers are unhappy with their jobs a
survey for recruitment consultants Badenoch & Clark suggests.

The Happiness at Work survey found widespread discontent over working hours, bosses’ behaviour and commuting. Long hours are a bugbear for UK staff

Male IT workers were the least happy workers with female lawyers living in Bristol the most content.

   

               
                   
                        

                   

  

Across the UK, men were marginally less content than their female counterparts.

Nearly three out of 10 men said they were unhappy at work, while 22% of women were discontent.

   
   

            

            

       

It’s essential that employers understand what motivates and enthuses their workforce                                                           Neil Wilson Badenoch & Clark

   
   

Badenoch & Clark’s managing director, Neil Wilson,
said that firms needed to do more to keep their employees happy or face
the costs of high staff turnover.

"It’s essential that employers understand what motivates and enthuses their workforce, " Mr Wilson said.

"Benefits, opportunities to work flexibly, management style and work environments will all have an impact."

On Monday, a separate survey of employee attitudes across the globe showed that UK workers were amongst the least content. Manchester was revealed as the UK town with the least happy workforce, the survey found. Any comments on the reasons behind this from you readers? Unfortunately, I haven’t found any reasons given for this, but would be interested to know. Is it having to commute into the centre of a very busy city?

Wage rates and long hours were singled out as areas of discontent amongst UK staff, the survey from research firm FDS said.

Well, how many more of these surveys are needed before some of these organisations at fault listen?  I’m sure that many of them recognise these issues: certainly the organisations I have worked with do, but they don’t know how to change it. Changing a culture of long hours doesn’t happen overnight and many managers don’t have the training to implement change successfully. I think the employees themselves have to take the initiative and work together with their bosses to find solutions instead of waiting or expecting it to "just happen". Researching solutions for themselves, teaming up with other members of their organisation to brainstorm potential solutions and approaching the issue in a collaborative "win win" manner may go a long way to solving some of the issues.

What do you think?

 

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