Please use these surveys as tools in your fight against management malpractice: share the results in staff meetings and/or distribute them throughout your office. Employee rights are important! Organizations need to understand that employee retention depends heavily on employee satisfaction, engagement and fulfillment.
50% of employees are unsatisfied with their jobs
According to The Conference Board, “Americans are growing increasingly unhappy with their jobs….The decline in job satisfaction is widespread among workers of all ages and across all income brackets. Half of all Americans today say they are satisfied with their jobs, down from nearly 60 percent in 1995. But among the 50 percent who say they are content, only 14 percent say they are ‘very satisfied.’ This report, which is based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households, conducted for The Conference Board by TNS, a leading market information company (LSE: TNN), also includes information collected independently by TNS. This information reveals that approximately one-quarter of the American workforce is simply ’showing up to collect a paycheck.’ The survey finds that job satisfaction has declined across all income brackets in the last nine years.”
In 90% of U.S. workplaces some degree of harassment occurs
At a recent American Psychological Association conference, psychologist Paula Grubb from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reported a very disturbing finding—nine out of ten workplaces in the United States experience some level of uncivil behavior, verbal abuse, and bullying. In the first national survey of verbal aggression in the workplace, managers in a majority of the 516 surveyed companies admitted that a variety of bullying and berating behaviors—such as in-your-face verbal cuts, the silent treatment, demeaning jokes, backstabbing, scapegoating, and sexual harassment—were common in their organizations. Given today’s highly competitive business environment, constant fear of layoffs, and the aggressive corporate cultures of some industries and professions, the situation is getting worse in many organizations. According to psychologists such as Paula Grubb, aggressive verbal and emotional abuse in the workplace fosters depression, insomnia, alcohol and drug abuse, and a general sense of dissatisfaction. The impact on the organization is lower productivity, staff attrition, reduced motivation, and diminished job satisfaction.
91% of employees in Japan are disengaged at work
According to a recent Gallup Poll, “Only 9% of Japanese employees are ‘engaged’ at work — that is, psychologically committed to their jobs and their employers. That figure, a key finding from The Gallup Organization’s most recent Employee Engagement Index survey of Japan’s workforce, has remained virtually unchanged over the past five years. The survey reveals that 67% of Japanese employees are ‘not engaged’ — they pick up a paycheck but aren’t really enthusiastic about their work or their companies. The remaining 24% are ‘actively disengaged;’ these employees not only don’t care about their jobs, but they are upset with their company and their managers and aggressively spread this malaise to those around them.”
Only 14% of employees worldwide are engaged at work
A recent article by Management Issues News identifies employee disengagement as a global epidemic. “A major new survey has found that only one in seven employees worldwide are fully engaged with their jobs and willing to go the extra mile for their companies. But the study, by consultants Towers Perrin, found that while many people are keen to contribute more at work, the behavior of their managers and culture of their organizations is actively discouraging them from doing so….they say their leaders and supervisors put obstacles in their paths. The study, the largest of its kind, was carried out among more than 85,000 people working for large and midsize companies in 16 countries on four continents.”
58% of employees cite poor management as obstacle to productivity
As reported in Management Issues News, “The 2005 Workplace Productivity Survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that almost six out of ten (58%) Americans identified poor management as the biggest obstacle to productivity.”
70% of organizations that do nothing to reduce employee discontent will suffer public relations/legal catastrophes
As reported in Business & Legal Reports, the Gartner Group, Inc., claims, “70 percent of enterprises that do not recognize and minimize employee dissatisfaction will have to fend off legal actions and public relations disasters caused by poor service, poor quality and poor business practices. Enterprise executives, especially those in high-pressure technology and knowledge-based companies, should understand the correlation between employee mistreatment and business disruption.” According to Diane Tunick Morello, vice president and research director at Gartner, “Executives and managers who see their companies engaging in mistreatment of employees should raise a warning flag and begin to quantify and qualify the risks to attracting staff, maintaining service, building a customer base and broadening business. Executives who ignore or downplay the connection between employee mistreatment and business turmoil put their employees, customers, partners and shareholders at risk.”
70% of management is unhappy with their work-life balance
In a recent survey of hundreds of executives and managers across the United States, conducted by NFI Research, a global research firm based in New Hampshire, almost 70 percent of those surveyed believed that “the work-life situation of people in business was either somewhat or extremely unbalanced. Long commutes, full schedules, stressful demands, the tight economy, increased expectations and many other factors make it extremely difficult to achieve a balance between work and personal life.”
40% of employees are dissatisfied with their work-life balance
A survey conducted by Massachusetts-based Discovery Group polled more than 50,000 employees in business organizations and found that more than 40 percent of the workers were dissatisfied with their work-life balance. According to Discovery Group CEO Bruce Katcher, this work-life imbalance “is due to long work hours, changing demographics, more time in the car, the deterioration of boundaries between work and home, and increased work pressure.”
73% of countries scored low on TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index
Transparency International (TI) www.transparency.org , an organization devoted to fighting corruption through access to information, reports that “a total of 106 out of 146 countries score less than 5 against a clean score of 10,” (scores based on TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index). “Sixty countries score less than 3 out of 10, indicating rampant corruption.”
49% of middle managers in the UK have been bullied
A Chartered Management Institute of Britian survey, which evaluated 512 executives in public and private sector organizations, “reveals that 39 per cent of all managers have been bullied in the past three years. Middle managers are the most bullied amongst the UK management population, with half of them (49 per cent) having suffered. However, victims appear at all levels of the organization. Almost a third (29 per cent) of directors and two fifths (42 per cent) of junior managers reported incidences of being bullied. The research found that the most common forms of bullying are misuse of power or position (70 per cent), verbal insults (69 per cent) and undermining by overloading or criticism (68 per cent). Physical intimidation or violence are the least common forms, with less than one fifth (17 per cent) having been bullied in this way.”
40% of employees are overloaded with work
HR Magazine reports, "Forty percent of employees say their workload is unreasonable, according to a study conducted over several years by management consulting firm The Discovery Group. And in many organizations, that won't change soon. Positions have been eliminated, and many people will be expected to continue to do more work than they believe is appropriate because hiring has stalled.
70% of workers are disengaged
Gallup Management Journal's semi-annual Employee Engagement
Index discovered that over 70% of today’s workers are disengaged due largely
to “negative workplace relationships.” Gallup’s definitions
of engaged and disengaged workers can be found below. Which category do you
fall under?
The following articles have been published and distributed by ezinearticles.com:
Rampant Employee Disengagement
Striking A Balance In Today's Business Environment
Management Malpractice Becomes A Vicious Cycle
Management Malpractice Is A Reality We Don't Have To Accept
The following are links to websites conducting interesting, relevant research on vital workplace issues. Some sites allow you to contribute to the research by completing a survey. Others are explorations of data that has already been collected. Check them out. They provide important information and resources for preventing management malpractice in your organization.
If you know of other websites or surveys on related workplace topics, please share it with us on the forum or contact us directly.
Survey of Strategic Rewards and Pay Practices
Results from a National Employee Satisfaction Survey
Research Correlating Employee Engagement and Company Profits
Survey Archives from the Society for Human Resource Management
Implications of Gallup's Employee Engagement Research
Employee Morale Assessment Survey
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