The Wailing List – Why They Call it Work
“Why They Call It Work”
E.L. Kersten, Ph.D
One of the Harvard Business Review’s “20 Breakthrough Ideas for 2006″
The halls are alive with the sound of carping. Last year, only 50% of U.S. workers were satisfied with their jobs, the lowest point yet in a steady decline that began in 1995, reports the Conference Board. And with the exception of a few anomalous years, job satisfaction in the United Kingdom has been dropping since 1991, according to research done at the University of Kent. Participants in these studies complained, among other things, about lack of personal fulfillment; “robotic,” meaningless work; work/life imbalance; insufficient acknowledgment of efforts; and lack of influence with supervisors.
Conventional wisdom blames such pervasive disgruntlement on poor leadership and lousy work environments. But have working conditions in the past decade really degenerated so much for so many?
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