Whiny Workers, Happy Workers

Are you a workplace whiner? Is work-life balance important to you? How important is salary? What gives you job satisfaction? To find the answers to questions such as these, FDS International surveyed almost 14,000 employees in 23 countries, including the United States and Canada. The resulting report, "What Workers Want: A Worldwide Study of Attitudes to Work and Work-Life Balance," was released on May 14, 2007.

Who are the World's Worst Workplace Whiners?

Which country's workers do you think are the biggest whiners? Feel free to assess yourself and your coworkers as you decide … According to the survey, the biggest bellyachers are the French (which doesn't surprise me, considering the number of times I've been inconvenienced by strikes while visiting France).

After the fussing French, filling out the top ranks were the:

2. British and Swedes (tie)

3. Americans

4. Australians and Portuguese (tie)

5. Canadians and Greeks (tie)

6. Poles

7. Germans and Spaniards (tie)

The least whiny of the 23 nations surveyed were the Irish.

What are the Biggest Beefs?

Looking at Americans and Canadians, both nations' employees' greatest gripes were over money, with 38% of Americans and 35% of Canadians expressing dissatisfaction with their pay. However, regarding this complaint, the report writers say that all of the top five whiny nations (which includes the USA and Canada) "…show a fairly high level of complaint about both pay and hours, neither of which are actually particularly harsh in global terms." That is, we should shush and get back to work.

Coming in a distant second on the problem scale for Americans were the number of hours worked (26%) and not getting enough holidays/paid time off (26%). The two items of least concern to Americans were having to care for children (11%) and having to care for adults (7%). Canadians' not-so-distant second complaint was not getting enough holidays/paid time off (29%), while third was the number of hours worked (25%). Similar to Americans, issues of least concern to Canadians were having to care for children (13%) and having to care for adults (6%).

Meanwhile, a similar percentage of Americans (18%) and Canadians (19%) found commute time a problem, while 19% of Americans and 22% of Canadians found a lack of flexibility in working hours problematic. The countries were tied regarding the problem of not enjoying their work, with 20% of respondents complaining about this.

What are the Top Six Factors in Job Satisfaction?

Based on the above dissatisfaction with pay, what do you think makes for the most satisfied worker – mega money? If you think that, you're wrong, since money was at the bottom of the pile! Overall, the top factor in job satisfaction was "opportunities to do an interesting job," which was followed by

In rating these six factors, Americans exactly followed the overall world pattern, while Canadians reversed the order of work-life balance and prospects for advancement.

More on Money

While money falls at the bottom of the heap of job satisfaction considerations, an employer shouldn't dismiss money when considering ways to create satisfied employees, because a pay boost was considered one way by which an employer could provide recognition for an employee's performance, which was the #2 factor in job satisfaction. Money talks, but perhaps not in the way we think it does.

Also discovered in the survey was that salary/pay was slightly more important for men's job satisfaction than women's, and that among the age ranges 18-25, 26-35, 36-45, and over 45, salary was most important for those in the 18-25 range and least important for those in the over 45 range.

Does Education Affect Job Satisfaction?

The main predictor of job satisfaction among those with a low level of education was job security, while the main predictor of job satisfaction among those with medium and high levels of education was opportunities to do an interesting job.

Second on the list of predictors for those of low education was opportunities to do an interesting job, while for those with medium education, it was work-life balance, and for those with high education, it was recognition for your performance. Least important to those at all education levels was salary/pay.

Job Satisfaction & Morale

The world's most satisfied workers are those in Thailand, and the least satisfied workers are those in Japan. Americans and Canadians are tied in their level of satisfaction, and are in the lower half of the 23-nation stack.

Meanwhile, the workers with the highest morale could be found in the Netherlands, with those in Ireland and Thailand tied for second-highest level of morale. Strangely, the top 10 nations with the highest morale included several of the biggest whiners: the British, French, and Spanish! The Americans had a slightly higher morale rating than the Canadians, though both countries were at the lower end of the morale rankings.

On Work-Life Balance

It's very popular these days to talk about work-life balance, but what exactly are we talking about when we mention the subject? In the survey, workers were given nine definitions of work-life balance, and the most popular answer among Americans and Canadians was "balancing home and work/giving weight to home issues." We North Americans would say that this definition is obvious, but other nations do not see it the same way. For example, the favored definition of work-life balance among North Americans was the least popular definition among Thais, while the favored definition among the Dutch and Swiss was "good co-operation between employer and employee." But the most popular definition in almost half of the 23 countries surveyed was "achieving a quality of life (general)" – which, interestingly, neglects to mention anything about work!

Perhaps because work-life balance is discussed so much, I somewhat considered it a philosophical, rather than practical topic. As a result, I thought that the more education people have, the more likely they would consider work-life balance an important thing. Shows what I know! According to the results, the less education someone had, the more important work-life balance was!

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