Unhappy Workers May Reduce Global GDP By As Much As 9%, Gallup Estimates (cnn.com)
- Reference: 0174984603
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/12/2039257/unhappy-workers-may-reduce-global-gdp-by-as-much-as-9-gallup-estimates
- Source link: https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/13/success/gallup-workers-economy-lonely-unhappy/index.html
> Employees' negative daily emotions and lack of well-being can ultimately hurt worker engagement -- and the economy, according to a new report released this week. Gallup, in its " [1]State of the Global Workplace ," estimates that low employee engagement [2]costs the global economy $8.9 trillion, or 9% of global GDP . The report includes findings from its latest annual World Poll, which surveyed 128,278 employees in more than 140 countries last year. That poll found that roughly 20% of workers globally reported feeling lonely, angry or sad on a daily basis. And 41% on average say they feel stress. Those most likely to say they feel lonely were younger workers (22%), employees who worked remotely full-time (25%) and those who felt most disengaged on the job (31%).
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> While work isn't always the cause of a person's negative daily emotions, employers should still be concerned. That's because work can either improve or worsen employees' well-being. On the one hand, the Gallup report noted, "when employees find their work and work relationships meaningful, employment is associated with high levels of daily enjoyment and low levels of all negative daily emotions. Notably, half of employees who are engaged at work are thriving in life overall." On the other, researchers found that being disengaged at work can negatively affect a person's wellbeing as much as -- or more than -- not having a job at all. "Employees who dislike their jobs tend to have high levels of daily stress and worry, as well as elevated levels of all other negative emotions," they wrote. "On many wellbeing items (stress, anger, worry, loneliness), being actively disengaged at work is equivalent to or worse than being unemployed."
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> The poll found that last year only 23% of employees were engaged at work, unchanged from the year prior. Gallup defines an engaged employee as someone "highly involved in and enthusiastic about their work and workplace. They are psychological 'owners,' drive performance and innovation, and move the organization forward." But those who said they were not engaged rose by 3 percentage points to 62%. These are employees characterized as "psychologically unattached to their work and company. Because their engagement needs are not being fully met, they are putting time but not energy or passion into their work."
[1] https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx?utm_source=state_of_the_global_workplace&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sogw_launch_1_june_06122024&utm_term=lead_generation&utm_content=explore_the_report_cta_1
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/13/success/gallup-workers-economy-lonely-unhappy/index.html
Be happy, Be productive (Score:4, Funny)
Or else get your pay docked for stealing from the company
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Is that you camalalala?
You're off your meds again.
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> Or else get your pay docked for stealing from the company
In some companies filling out your timesheet to say you worked so many hours, then not actually doing any work during those hours, is considered a termination offense.
Just make sure you work for a company that does not believe in Terminate With Extreme Prejudice ... and that's not a racist rejoinder if you truly understand the phrase in Italics.
The obvious next step (Score:1)
"How much would it cost to make them happier to the point where they would be maximally productive in relation to what they produce?"
Because there's a sweet spot in this. The societal question here is where is the limit, and are we too high or too low on it. 9% quoted could actually be below the sweet spot, or above it, or at it. By itself this 9% assessment holds no value in the context of the study, because it could be that reducing that number to 8% would cost 20%. Or it would cost 0.02%. Or it would hav
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You can't buy true happiness, being respected and treated well at work will long way I don't need parties, and gimmicks to make me happy, as long as you pay me enough not to be too stressed about money I am good. The thing that make me the most upset at work are dumb ass bosses making dumb ass decisions.
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You can absolutely buy happiness. There was a fairly famous Chinese actress who correctly noted that she would rather cry at the back seat of a BMW, than smile on a back of a bike. Because that moment of tears will pass and she'll be happy for the rest of the time when rich, whereas smile of a girl on a back of cheap bike will rapidly fade when faced with daily reality of poverty.
What you cannot buy whoever is fulfillment. But that's because fulfillment is largely resource agnostic. It doesn't care if you'r
I'm disappointed in the internet today (Score:3)
I wanted to make a joke about how all they need to do is play Tori Amos's The Happy Worker song from the rather surreal (and quite underrated IMHO) 1992 movie [1]Toys [imdb.com], but it appears no one has bothered to do the needful and upload a clip of that scene to YouTube.
If you haven't seen the movie, there's a scene where the factory workers are building toys while the song is implied to be literally playing through a PA system on the factory floor. Now, I was going to say something about how that might drive a person insane having to listen to the same song for your entire shift, every workday, but that's pretty much what Disney ride operators are subjected to. Make of that what you will.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105629/
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Close enough...
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cQgQIMlwWw
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I'm thinking of The Simpsons when Marge says Tom Jones music always makes her feel better. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Win5nErh7zA&start=41
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Haven't seen that movie, no big deal.
How about her video for that song, it is indeed interesting: [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfdqDpRV9jI
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"a job you are happy with"
Well, that's the problem now, isn't it? I mean it sucks BECAUSE it is work. Take the most delightful, easy, wonderful activity and make it a job, you then get people empowered to tell you to do it faster, do it better, you're not good enough, you're underperforming, and the big zinger, no raise for you. Chocolate taster? Incredible wonderful activity. Make it a job, and it'll be a PITA. There's no getting around it, but then again, it can be less of a PITA, and that's pr
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Found the fuckup in denial. You are probably CEO-material. Fro a company that does not want a future.
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You sound miserable and are thus not a good source of advice on the topic.
Greedy bastards couldn't give a fuck about us (Score:3)
The people who do the actual work are just peasants and peons to The Rich, they couldn't give a flying fuck whether we're 'happy' or not so long as we kill ourselves off making them even richer than they already are.
At best they'll try to gaslight us into believing we have it good and should be 'happy'.
At worst, they'll punish us for daring to talk about how we're not happy.
I'm firmly convinced that given their druthers, we'd literally be living in a modern-day version of feudalism, and if you're one of the peasant class and dared to complain, you -- and perhaps your family -- would just plain be killed outright.
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He's not wrong....
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If you're living in a castle (modern or not) and never see the people who do the actual work, it's easy to not consider them human beings. Just sayin'.
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Modern capitalism is actually worse than feudalism in some ways - notably working hours and vacation time. Feudal peasants wouldn't ordinarily be killed just for complaining but they could easily get drafted into one of the king's wars.
Involved and enthusatic? (Score:3)
Who could be involved and enthusiastic about flipping burgers or working on an assembly line? Most work, even technical work, is dull repetitive tasks and that does not even include all the non-productive busy work that most jobs seem to require (weekly reports, idiotic safety videos, and whatever). Making most employees really happy at their jobs is probably impossible (that is why it is a job and not a hobby) and even if it could be done, it would not be cost effective. Employers do not need employees to maximumly effective only adequately effective. It is cheaper to hire more than to get the best.
Re:Involved and enthusatic? (Score:5, Informative)
> Who could be involved and enthusiastic about flipping burgers or working on an assembly line?
16-17 y/o me for one. I was happy to be making money, and I knew they were entry level jobs I'd grow out of.
Of course, back then (1976) 18 y/o minimum wage me could move out of the parent's house into an apartment of my own, have a car with insurance, support myself, and put myself through college. Can't do that nowdays, I don't care how good the pundits say the economy is doing.
Re:Involved and enthusatic? (Score:5, Insightful)
> I don't care how good the pundits say the economy is doing.
That has always rubbed me the wrong way. The disconnect between pundits and reality is astonishing. Some of them say we are in the best economy ever, whereas our purchasing power is a fraction of what it was 40 years ago.
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That certainly isn't wrong. Our purchasing power is a fraction of what it was 40 years ago.
40 years ago I had a not-so-great job but was realistically contemplating owning an airplane. A used airplane, for sure, but after an incredible raise in pay over the years, I don't believe I realistically could go there now. Nope, just looked at Trade-a-plane, and I was right, its out of the question. Things have gotten markedly worse. Lots of reasons for it, I believe I know many of them, but voicing them wi
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> Who could be involved and enthusiastic about flipping burgers or working on an assembly line? Most work, even technical work, is dull repetitive tasks and that does not even include all the non-productive busy work that most jobs seem to require (weekly reports, idiotic safety videos, and whatever). Making most employees really happy at their jobs is probably impossible (that is why it is a job and not a hobby) and even if it could be done, it would not be cost effective. Employers do not need employees to maximumly effective only adequately effective. It is cheaper to hire more than to get the best.
It is cheaper to hire more people only if productivity is linear in the number of people, and realistically, those jobs will likely be replaced by robots soon, if they haven't already.
For everyone else, making employees happier often costs little, and helps a lot. Giving employees a feeling of job security — a feeling that the company has their backs — costs surprisingly little. Just make it your official policy to not lay people off, and to find other jobs for workers within the company if yo
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Open plan offices, barrages of email and pointless meetings do far worse to productivity and management don't worry about those.
get rid of TPS reports (Score:2)
get rid of TPS reports
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> get rid of TPS reports
And the cover sheets that are supposed to go with them
RTO (Score:4, Insightful)
What? According to HR and board of directors that RTO is the fix for all morale and productivity problems! How could this have happened?
I love sitting in on disgusting toilets shared by 100 people and getting up at 5:30am and blowing $300 a month on gas so I can sit in teams meetings all day. PRoductivity is waay up now
Awe, poor capitalists and their money. (Score:3)
I'm reminded of the cartoon where dinosaurs are watching in horror as "the big one" (an asteroid) smashes into the planet and the T Rex (who reminds me an awful lot of Mitch McConnell) looks up and goes, "OH SH*T! THE ECONOMY!!!" So what's the point of it all if we all have to live like vassals and serfs just to stay alive while The One Percent own seven different houses in 5 different states and can "only" afford eleven or twelve yachts? Evidently Covid-19 taught most (of the rich) people NOTHING. For that matter, most people are too uncomfortable (or too freaking stoopid) to contemplate how we bungled a global pandemic on the easy setting. But sure, force all of them to return to the office. That'll work. (Okay, not really.)
That somehow doesn't bother me. (Score:1)
I'm not a capitalist overlord jerking off onto a pile of gold, so somehow I don't mind if we don't extract 100% productivity from every wage slave.
Remember that old tagline (Score:5, Funny)
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Re:Remember that old tagline (Score:5, Insightful)
Guaranteed there’s CEOs right now thinking that's the solution.
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Or they'll revert to the tried and true method of increasing output while decreasing expenses by simply owning their employees.
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Ah, the Republican amendment.
Boomer + job fulfilment + prosperty gospel of work (Score:2)
This is the long evolution of the 1980s 'work motivational' speakers and their 'work is personal fulfillment' 'prosperity gospel.
Prior to the boomers, work was seen as a way to put food on the table and a roof over your head and not a personal fulfillment path.
The unhappiness is also compounded in that we've spent the last 50 years training and enabling groups to complain their way to more government programs, special handouts, special favoritism in laws and special you can do not wrong media bias in their
Less families, anti-family laws, courts and hr (Score:2)
Given there has been a dramatic rise in childless women (1), people not in a long term relationship (2), and rise in divorce with its negative effects on first boys, then girls post-divorce, working later in life for just food and a roof has less purpose
1) [1]https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com], people not in a relationship
2) [2]https://www.pewresearch.org/so... [pewresearch.org]
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/241535/percentage-of-childless-women-in-the-us-by-age/
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profile-of-single-americans/