

The Sharp Dropoff In Worker Happiness - philk10
http://www.fastcompany.com/1835578/the-sharp-drop-in-worker-happiness-and-what-your-company-can-do-about-it

======
OzzyB
One thing that upsets me when such topics arise is the non-mention of how
_Health Insurance_ plays a huge part in all this.

This might be something that UK/EU folks might not be able to empathise with,
but for US workers, the need for health insurance is a _crucial_ factor in how
they choose to stay/leave/accept _any_ job.

To say folks should just "up and leave" if they feel they're under appreciated
is not so clear-cut when your medications, nay your family/spouse/child's
_health_ is on-the-line while you try to run off in search of "greener
pastures".

In my mind, one very real reason healthcare reform has failed in the US is
that companies[1] are very aware that being the main/sole provider of their
workforce's healthcare provides very strong leverage over them.

Now having said that, it is true that healthcare costs companies alot of
money, and it may be something that a large percentage of them would like to
avoid -- a possible factor in their preferrence for a younger workforce
perhaps -- but to ignore healthcare and its effects _psycologically_ on our
society and workforce as a whole is doing us a disservice.

[1] I guess I'm really thinking of "big" companies with a need for a large
dependable workforce, not your mum & pop/start-up/entrepreneurial kind...

~~~
specialist
I've taken and stayed at crap jobs precisely for the health insurance. When I
was consulting, I was self-insured thru my state's insurance of last resort.
Expensive, while it was available.

The cost of health insurance is an active deterrent to me risking my own
startups.

Hypocrisy and contradictions from the free market zealots is nothing new.

And yet I remain stunned that the same freaks who say they want a flexible
work force, ya know, that whole "free market" thang, actively oppose the
single biggest enabler to a mobile work force, universal health insurance.

~~~
paulhauggis
"And yet I remain stunned that the same freaks who say they want a flexible
work force, ya know, that whole "free market" thang, actively oppose the
single biggest enabler to a mobile work force, universal health insurance."

I'm stunned that people that hate monopolies seem to be fine with a
government-run one. In all cases, innovation stops and quality declines
because nobody really has a choice.

When you can assure me this won't happen, I might start supporting universal
health care.

I can barely trust the bloated and inefficient government to run un-important
things..I sure as hell can't trust them to run something as important as
health care.

~~~
_delirium
I don't have a lot of data points, but I've lived in both the U.S. (non-public
healthcare) and Denmark (public healthcare) and the quality and convenience of
the latter is quite good in comparison, imo. The amount of sheer _bureaucracy_
is much lower in Denmark as well; I don't have to file reimbursement forms for
a half-dozen different doctors, worry about copay rules or what precisely
constitutes a "preexisting condition", or spend time on the phone with
insurance agents to figure out why a bill was rejected. It just works: you go
to the doctor, you never receive a bill, the end. Outcomes seem on par or
better than in the U.S. as well.

However I would be open to a voucher-type system where the actual providers
are private, competing for customers who pay into a common risk pool. It's the
tying of the risk pool to employers that's most problematic to me, and which
imo severely weakens other parts of the free market, by reducing labor
mobility. That might actually improve some free-market elements of healthcare,
since the actual customers would choose providers, rather than their employers
doing it for them.

~~~
paulhauggis
Everyone I know that lives in a country with public health care says the same
thing:

1) long wait times for any major surgery 2) sub-par equipment/hospitals 3)
elderly patients don't get treated as well as they should

Nearly all of them come over to the US and pay for major surgery.

I also find it strange that in any of these discussions, nobody that lives
under universal health care will talk about the bad things.

Without this sort of honesty, I will never want a public system in the US.

~~~
_delirium
Do you know anyone who lives in Scandinavia? And, beyond anecdotes, have you
looked at any actual studies or statistics?

I don't think every public health system is well run, but I think the better
ones are better-run than the US, and lead to much greater peace of mind,
because I don't have to worry if I'm covered or not--- I know I am. The total
expenditures are actually lower, too, because the U.S. spends a lot of money
on public healthcare, just very inefficiently. Perhaps I'm part of some evil
conspiracy to lie about how I like living in Denmark, but the numbers seem to
back me up. There's plenty of other things I'll be happy to complain about
about Denmark and Danish culture, too, but the healthcare system isn't one of
them.

I don't think I've been treated well in the US healthcare system, in any case,
and there were long wait times and subpar equipment. I also had to change
doctors when I changed jobs, something that Denmark _doesn't_ require me to
do. And I had to spend a lot of time on the phone with insurance companies,
who seemed to _always_ make mistakes and miscode things; anyone who thinks
governments are bureaucratic hasn't tried to deal with a large corporation's
phone tree.

But I suspect you are putting ideology above any actual interest in rationally
evaluating different healthcare systems based on evidence.

------
johnhartigun
Below is excerpt from _23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism_.

Summary: Since 1980s, the decision power in US corporations started to move to
the hands of shareholders. They care about short term profits, not about the
employees.

> And then, in the 1980s, the holy grail was found. It was called the
> principle of shareholder value maximization. It was argued that professional
> managers should be rewarded according to the amount they can give to
> shareholders. In order to achieve this, it was argued, first _profits need
> to be maximized by ruthlessly cutting costs – wage bills, investments,
> inventories, middle-level managers, and so on_. Second, the highest possible
> share of these profits needs tobe distributed to the shareholders – through
> dividends and share buybacks. In order to encourage managers to behave in
> this way, the proportion of their compensation packages that stock options
> account for needs to be increased, so that they identify more with the
> interests of the shareholders. The idea was advocated not just by
> shareholders, but also by many professional managers, most famously by Jack
> Welch, the long-time chairman of General Electric (GE), who is often
> credited with coining the term ‘shareholder value’ in aspeech in 1981.

> Soon after Welch’s speech, shareholder value maximization became the
> zeitgeist of the American corporate world. In the beginning, it seemed to
> work really well for both the managers and the shareholders. The shareof
> profits in national income, which had shown a downward trend since the
> 1960s, sharply rose in the mid 1980s and has shown an upward trend since
> then. And the shareholders got a higher share of that profit as dividends,
> while seeing the value of their shares rise. Distributed profits as a share
> of total US corporate profit stood at 35–45 per cent between the 1950s and
> the 1970s, but it has been onan upward trend since the late 70s and now
> stands at around 60 per cent. The managers saw their compensation rising
> through the roof, but shareholders stopped questioning their pay packages,
> as they were happy with ever-rising share prices and dividends. The practice
> soon spread to other countries – more easily to countries like Britain,
> which had a corporate power structure and managerial culture similar to
> those of the US, and less easily to other countries, as we shall see below

> Now, this unholy alliance between the professional managers and the
> shareholders was all financed by squeezing the other stakeholders in the
> company (which is why it has spread much more slowly to other rich countries
> where the other stakeholders have greater relative strength). _Jobs were
> ruthlessly cut, many workers were fired and re-hired as non-unionized labour
> with lower wages and fewer benefits, and wage increases were suppressed_
> (often by relocating to or outsourcing from low-wage countries, suchas China
> and India – or the threat to do so). The suppliers, and their workers, were
> also squeezed by continued cuts in procurement prices, while the government
> was pressured into lowering corporate tax rates and/or providing more
> subsidies, with the help of the threat of relocating to countries with lower
> corporate tax rates and/or higher business subsidies. As a result, income
> inequality soared and in a seemingly endless corporate boom (ending, of
> course, in 2008), the vast majority of the American and the British
> populations could share in the (apparent) prosperity only through borrowing
> atunprecedented rates.

~~~
specialist
> It was called the principle of shareholder value maximization.

But that's not what happened. It was just rhetoric for covering executive team
compensation maximization. Shareholders have been screwed along with the rest
of us (he says while checking his 401k).

Wild-eyed socialist that I am, the single biggest, quickest improvement to
corporate responsibility and governance would be to increase shareholder
rights.

~~~
magicalist
It's not that simple either. Shareholders are often also stupid and prone to
mob mentality.

Moreover, if your primary shareholders are, say, hedge funds, the motivations
for all parties have become so removed that in that case increased shareholder
rights would almost always be a bad thing, especially if your metric is over
worker happiness.

~~~
specialist
I'm ignorant of hedge funds, so can't comment. I have read many laments from
institutional investors about being screwed; they're the shareholders I'm
thinking of (eg my county's investment manager, the team managing my 401k).

I'm aware of the "low information voter" problem. And yet I'm a pollyanna. I
believe (as a matter of faith) that high quality information leads to high
quality decisions.

Given the choice between corporate rule (oligarchy) and mob rule, I guess I'd
side with the mob.

------
dclowd9901
In an abusive relationship, there are two people.

The reason companies have the power to put their thumb into their employees is
because workers have let their dignity and pride go, just to get a paycheck.
Proverbially speaking, you get what you pay for. In essence, if you take a job
that is below a threshold of tolerance that you would like, that's _exactly_
what you're going to get.

I realize it's easy to espouse this kind of view. I don't have a wife or
children who rely on me to have a constant job. I'm in an industry whose
companies are essentially in a full-court press hiring mode. But I think from
this position, I gain perspective.

When you're at a job you hate, you lose passion. Passion for everything from
hobbies, to friends, to (most tragically) family. Your partner sees a frail
person who has given up. Your kids see a failure. Someone who never reached
for and got what they wanted. They not only pity you, but they have contempt
for you.

Be the person they want you to be, which, incidentally, tends to be the person
_you_ want to be. Don't say "Yes" to 2 weeks vacation and 10k under market.
That's ridiculous. Stand your ground. You're worth something.

Companies have effectively gotten prospects to race to the bottom in terms of
compensation, either because the prospects are too stupid or too scared to ask
for more.

If more people took a little pride in themselves and asked for what they
deserved, we wouldn't all be so paralyzed under the slave traders.

At the end of the day, no one can leave the abuser behind but you.

~~~
cageface
_But I think from this position, I gain perspective._

I think if you had any experience of being the powerless one in an employee-
employer relationship you'd gain far more perspective.

~~~
tomjen3
You are never powerless, until you believe that you are.

You may not be able to change your current company. But you may be able to
find something else. It will properly pay less, but there are ways around that
(/r/frugal, say). You may be able to get enough self-respect that you dare to
stand up to your boss.

My grandparents were as close as you can get to poverty without actually
starving -- better not drop this piece of meat, because that is all I have and
there isn't enough potatoes to make up for it -- poor.

Grandpa worked his ass of getting crazy overtime to make a bit of money. Yet
once when his boss became really mean he told to stop doing that shit or he
would quit. He didn't exactly have much of cushion at home, but he knew that
he wouldn't stand for abuse either.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Your grandfather also had a union movement, in his day.

~~~
tomjen3
Yeah, but that doesn't mean much. He could not have keept his house (which he
got so cheap he had to rebuild most of it over the years) and he would still
be out of a job.

------
Androsynth
Personally I feel this is a result of the Results-Oriented style of business
that originated when MBA's started becoming ubiquitous in businesses (a fairly
recent phenomenon, starting in the 1970's).

The problem is that even for a talented hard working passionate person who
Gets Shit Done, it feels like you are Conan pushing the wheel
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVI9MULtv8g>). When you falter, you get the
whip, which means you _always_ have to be on your game. When you go above
expectations, you get a pat on the back and a thumbs up. After a while you
realize that the rewards are simply not worth it. This leads to unhappiness.

I want to be a part of an organization that feels like its a family; like its
us vs the world; like everyone has a role to play and that role is vital,
meaningful and important. I think this is partially the reason why going to
work for a startup is becoming more popular. (I left my old company to start
my own business)

~~~
mattgreenrocks
This is why I chose to freelance.

Traditional megacorp jobs want nothing less than to own your soul. I am not
exaggerating. It isn't enough to require 50 hours a week with a measly 2 weeks
of vacation. No, you need to constantly prove you are committed by working
harder than all your coworkers. Otherwise, you're not a team player. You're
expected to be loyal with your time, your energy, and give 110%. But they
don't have to be quite as loyal, because, you know, those shareholders are so
Very Important. (Never mind the employee is the one that is actively
generating value.)

Every little metric is latched onto because business is still pissed that
productivity is not this neat, quantified number that can be put into an excel
spreadsheet. So they seek to optimize everything that can be quantified, even
if it hampers productivity.

I value myself too much to be put into that position again. My freelancing
gig's purpose is actually me interviewing companies to find one that will
respect me.

------
roc
Personally, I've noticed people vacillate between hating their jobs and liking
their jobs just fine, despite no real change in day-to-day management, policy,
recognition, etc.

What I've seen as the big parts of the puzzle are stagnant wages, longer hours
and whether people perceive themselves as trapped. (higher overall
unemployment ~= less chance of switching ~= less happy)

~~~
davidcuddeback
_> Personally, I've noticed people vacillate between hating their jobs and
liking their jobs just fine, despite no real change in day-to-day management,
policy, recognition, etc._

I find the scale you chose to be interesting. At the low end of the scale, you
chose the word "hate," which is a fairly strong negative. At the high end of
the scale, you chose the phrase "like ... just fine," which is somewhere
between neutral and luke-warm. It's a shame that people never "love" their
job. Considering how much of our lives we spend at work, liking my job "just
fine" isn't good enough for me.

I've noticed the same vacillating. In my experience, there is usually a
catalyst that makes someone hate their job---usually a decision by someone
higher up that the person strongly disagrees with. Over a period of time (one
to two weeks), the person gets over it and grudgingly accepts the new norm
(returning to liking their job just fine). In a way there is no real day-to-
day change, because the source of the catalyst events is the same, but the
event itself can be a change.

~~~
roc
> _"I find the scale you chose to be interesting"_

To be fair, part of that is just American society. It's acceptable to complain
about crap work and low pay. Whereas celebrating your awesome job and high pay
is seen as uncouth. [1]

So whenever you tally up public statements about jobs, you should expect it to
be tilted toward the negative.

In this case, I was trying to restrict it to people I've known whose attitudes
changed while doing essentially the same job at the same place. But you know
how anecdotes go...

[1] The same goes for many aspects of American life. When things go well
you're expected to keep quiet in deference to those who haven't had such good
fortune.

Hence "Fuck my life" and "white people problems" are memes. But there are no
comparable analogues.

Amusingly, the only time Americans generally acknowledge that there's lots of
complaining and little celebrating, is in the context of complaining about the
complaining. (e.g. "Everything is Great and No-one is Happy")

~~~
davidcuddeback
_> To be fair, part of that is just American society. It's acceptable to
complain about crap work and low pay. Whereas celebrating your awesome job and
high pay is seen as uncouth. So whenever you tally up public statements about
jobs, you should expect it to be tilted toward the negative._

I wonder if that could be a source of the problem. Would Americans be happier
if the societal norm allowed for celebrating your awesome job? I think we
would be. It's been shown that smiling makes people happier [1]. I don't think
it's far-fetched that that theory could extend to expressing happiness with
your job affecting your opinion of it. Since our emotions can also affect
those around us, if it's only acceptable to complain about your job, that
probably drags down those who actually enjoy theirs.

Another way this societal norm could be a source of a happiness problem is
that even if bosses understand that they should care about their employees
happiness at work, it's difficult to measure and focus on if people aren't
supposed to express their happiness.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/18/science/a-feel-good-
theory...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/18/science/a-feel-good-theory-a-
smile-affects-mood.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm)

------
fuzzylizard
I think one of the best things employers can do to show that they respect
their employees is to invert the decision making and control structure in the
organization. Similarly to what Agile/XP did for the software development
sector. Instead of having managers and CxOs make all the decisions, allow the
people closest to the situation, with all the facts, make the decision and be
responsible for that decision. Create small teams that are self organizing and
imbue those teams with the power to truly own and produce the solution to the
problems that they face and are trying to solve.

I personally feel that the main problem with organizations and employee
happiness and retention is the current system of command and control where all
employees are assumed to be idiots that need to be micro-managed. How is
anyone suppose to be happy in that kind of environment? Work should not be an
extension of school where we store and manage people in order to keep them out
of trouble until they are old enough to retire. No, work should be a place
where people want to go because they know that they own a little bit of that
business and are really responsible for its success and/or failure.

~~~
aNoob7000
Good luck with your suggestion. We're almost two years into switching over
from waterfall to Agile/XP and I can tell you that it can be painful. Wait
until your first meeting, when you are asked why are your story points are
down for this sprint? or, why didn't your finish your task that you put up on
the board yesterday?

I think a good work environment has more to do with the way management
executes on priorities, how the information is communicated to those involved,
trust between the business unit and information technology group, and the
level of respect/trust between the managers and their employees.

Agile doesn't solve problems with management and or managers, it's just a
different way of getting work done.

------
aidenn0
As far as I can tell the most unhappy place to develop software is at a bank.
I had a friend who was a test-engineer and worked under contract for a bank,
with the intention of becoming a salaried worker at the end of the contract;
as it was he barely made it through the contract period without going insane.

Others I have known who have worked for banks have had similar issues. I have
yet to talk to one person who is part of software development at a bank and
have them say a single good thing about their job.

------
davidcuddeback
_> Your employees will stay if you tell them directly you need them, care
about them, and sincerely plan to support them._

s/tell/show/

I absolutely hate it when a manager tells me, "We really value your
contributions," and then asks me to work 60-hour weeks. Words are cheap. Don't
_tell_ me that you value me. _Show_ me.

Edited to add: To be fair, the article does allude to the fact that you have
to back your words with action, but I want to make this distinction explicit.
From the article: "To be successful, all your future _behavior must
demonstrate_ to your employees that their best career move is to remain
working for you" (emphasis mine).

~~~
excuse-me
I don't see the confusion.

They really do value your contribution, at $x, and if they can get you to do
more contributing for the same $x then they will be much happier.

If they didn't value your contribution they wouldn't want you to do more of
it!

------
rpwilcox
I wish the "recommendations" part would have included, "Give your people a
raise" (or "send them home at 5").

In the middle of recession style "your raise this year is the fact that you
still have a job", a 5% raise would earn you a lot of loyalty... and a 10%
raise is stuff of legend.

A 10% raise for a department is _cheap_ : say the business laid off 10 people
in the department over the last 4 years, and 3 people remain to run a formerly
(about) dozen person department. So you're spending 1/3rd of an average salary
to keep those people on. Compared to the 20% a headhunter would take + the
productivity loss of replacing workers... sounds like a deal to me.

~~~
maigret
Many studies show that actually, money is not _that_ important. So I'm
wondering what would happen if say, those 5% were invested in team events,
office improvements, better food or hardware. Or, even, how would employee
feel if they'd be paid 5% under market value, and this difference would be
invested in work environment.

~~~
herval
I always find that study very funny. A great deal of people DO consider money
a very good incentive (and an ever-increasing number consider "team events" an
annoyance and would trade it all for more time for themselves/their
families)...

What would you rather have given to you as an incentive: a raise, more free
time or a weekly barbecue with the blokes from the office?

~~~
true_religion
The answer is not to ask workers what they want, but rather examine how
workers actually behave under the different circumstances.

~~~
herval
How do you measure it? Both giving different incentives to different members
of the team and giving random incentives every time will probably DEMOTIVATE
people for obvious reasons (it will feel "unfair", "unpredictable", "random")

~~~
maigret
I guess a valuable scientific study would try to see the delta between what
people like and what they think they want. Applying that in real teams though,
has a lot more to do with the personal experience and ability to deal with
peoples and teams. Some understanding of one own personality and psychology
sure helps for getting that kind of ability.

------
michaelochurch
This "dropoff" coincides with a change in management philosophy in favor of
"lean" organizations where a manager might have 12 to 20 reports instead of 3
to 5. No one can manage 20 people decently.

This "lean" model has a number of results, but chief among them is that
managerial accountability is only upward. With this model, even a terrible
manager will have 2 or 3 loyal reports who do good work, clean up the messes,
and pick up the slack. Usually, these are the 2-3 who are established enough
to know the ropes and be effective, and who are holding on because they hope
to outlive the bad manager.

Fundamentally, the problem is a system where decent managers are overburdened,
bad managers aren't caught out, and almost all companies are poorly managed in
general. The smart people figure this out and jump ship as soon as they figure
out they're not going anywhere.

~~~
adrianhoward
_This "dropoff" coincides with a change in management philosophy in favor of
"lean" organizations_

Can you describe what you mean by "lean" here?

I'm a little confused since the organisations I understand as following lean
practices don't have the attributes that you talk about. Possibly this is a
US/EU thing though...

~~~
michaelochurch
"Lean" has a lot of meanings, but usually, it means "low in fat". The idea is
that a company with a lower management ratio (say, 3-5) is flabby. The 1980s
change in corporate structure was to "trim the fat". People are still debating
whether this was good or bad, and certainly there were companies that had (and
still do have) useless people in management, but the long-term verdict has
been negative on the new structure. Managing people properly is too time-
intensive for one person to have 20 reports.

~~~
adrianhoward
Fair enough.

Around where I tend to hang out when used in the context of organisations,
especially technical ones, it usually refers to
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing> or
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_software_development> \- so I was confused
:)

------
sawyer
This article suggests that the problem of worker dissatisfaction is a whole
lot of hand holding and head patting from managers; which begs the question,
why have managers at all?

The growing popularity of entrepreneurship in the US is evidence that people
want more autonomy. Phil Libin (Evernote) is right: you shouldn't start a
startup for money or more spare time, but he's wrong that the only reason to
do it is to "change the world." The most compelling reason to found a startup
for those of us who've worked for a big-co is autonomy.

There is a middle ground though - Valve is a perfect example of a growing
organization giving workers the autonomy they desire. It requires a rabid
dedication to hiring the right people, but if you can pull it off this may
just be the winning model of our age.

------
eli_gottlieb
_New York’s Conference Board, a century-old research firm, began studying
employee satisfaction and engagement 25 years ago. Their work shows that
worker happiness has fallen every year since--in good economic times and bad.
Today, over half of American workers effectively hate their jobs._

Well of course. The American economy was reengineered, from being driven by
invention, innovation and productivity increases to being driven by just
making everyone work harder.

When you deliberately hurt working conditions and cheapen wages as an
ideological crusade on behalf of the Protestant Work Ethic and the spirit of
capitalism, _of course_ people will hate their jobs!

------
pasbesoin
In my personal experience, it has never been the work that bothered me. (In
fact, I enjoy a challenge.)

It has always been the environment.

Again, in my personal experience, pack people in like veal, and the misery
rises. It certainly does, for me.

P.S. I will include in my definition of environment *sshole employees (of
whatever level). Differing opinions, I can deal with. True manipulators have
one solution: Get rid of them, either by their leaving or by your leaving.

------
cnbeuiwx
Actually, why would people be happy in this society? What is the higher
meaning of working for low to medium wages all their lives just to be able to
pay the bills every month?

Who becomes happy from that? Mankind is not doing anything worthwhile on this
planet right now. We are in the dark ages.

------
VeejayRampay
Worker Happiness decreasing in times of economic downturn?

Color me surprised.

~~~
tsotha
That's what I was thinking. During the bubble unhappy people would quit and
find another job (usually in the reverse order). Now they're stuck, because
they can't find anything else. So you'd expect the average level of worker
happiness to go down even before you factor in companies trying to take
advantage.

------
robatsu
Is anyone surprised that the 25 year war on corporate paternalism and 2 way
loyalty in favor of a quite openly stated reductionist policy of "extract
maximum value from employees for the bare minimum that they will accept" has
left a lot of unhappy workers?

