Do you think employees want less work instead of more? Are they happier when they are goofing off than when they working hard?
Many bosses may think that their workers are happiest doing nothing, but a survey released recently by the attitude-research company Sirota Survey Intelligence of Purchase, N.Y., indicates that employees who are busy, even those with too much work to do, are more contented than those with little or no work to do.
According to Sirota, this indicates that most employees want to do something and not just get by on their jobs. These findings are based on a survey of 203,000 employees at various companies.
The findings:
- Those who rated their job satisfaction at an average of 37 out of a possible 100 were those with “much too little work to do,” according to the survey. These were the least happy workers.
- Workers who had “just the right amount of work” rated their overall satisfaction at 68 out of 100.
- Workers who had “much too much work” averaged 52 out of a possible 100 in job satisfaction. Sirota's findings indicate that “Overworked people, in a sense, are getting feedback from the organization that their contributions are important,” according to a company statement.
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