America’s Unhappy Workers – Inclusion, Creativity, Flexibility Key to Turning Things Around

According to the Conference Board’s new report on job satisfaction in the United States, the news is not good. In 2009 only 45 percent of Americans reported being satisfied with their jobs, compared to 61 when the survey was first conducted  in 1987. And the culprit is not the recession–overall, job satisfaction has been declining for over two decades.

It is no coincidence, I believe, that during this same period the workforce has become significantly more diverse. The report cites employers’ failures to tap workers’ creativity as a significant reason for this growing dissatisfaction. In other words, businesses have failed to call out and capitalize on the differences that make employees feel engaged and valuable (percentages round up to nearest whole number):

Substantial gaps exist in training or the skills that employers prize the most. While 92 percent of respondents rated critical thinking and creativity skills as “high need,” 44 percent of those rating them in this manner did not offer programs to inspire new modes of thought. Likewise, while 69 percent of respondents said there was a “high need” for programs to foster skills in creativity, 69 percent of those who gave creativity this rating did not provide these programs.

It should be no surprise, then, that “three-quarters of the survey respondents are dissatisfied with the educational and job training activities available to them. ”

Reading through the Conference Board’s report, it’s not hard to see that this failure to tap individual creativity–which profoundly affects not only worker satisfaction but productivity–is the result of the larger failure to leverage diversity in the workplace. According to the report, job satisfaction declines when workers believe that their distinctive assets are not being used or even seen.

The report concludes with five recommendations for improving employee engagement. Among these is that “Flexibility Should Be a Corporate Value”:

Flexibility can describe a nimble organization that quickly adapts its product and service processes. A truly flexible organization embeds this value reciprocally with its employees, applying flexibility to its job design, hiring policies, career management, and benefits. This flexibility can prove vital in attracting and retaining talent by supporting employee aspirations. HR needs to be more creative in coming up with a genuine menu of options in these areas. After measuring the organization’s demographic and cultural profile, HR should drive experimentation. One area where a more flexible approach is needed, for example, is in recruitment and talent management. Typically, individuals are hired to fit a job description. Companies might achieve better outcomes if they try to identify individuals with a history of achievement, intellectual and emotional intelligence, and the commitment and alignment to become a good employee.

In The Inclusion Paradox, I examine case studies of corporations who have found that being flexible in job design, career management and benefits to match the strengths and needs of an increasingly diverse workforce promotes greater employee satisfaction and productivity. How might you adapt the practices in those case studies, as well as the recommendations in the Conference Board’s report, to promote employee engagement in your organization?

 Print This Post   Email This Post