Why are workers so miserable?
“My daughter wants to be a journalist. Do you think it's a good idea?” a taxi driver once asked as he drove me back to the Financial Times. “Well,” I said, “I love my job.” My driver gave an astonished snort. “‘I love my job.' Do you know how few people can sit at the back and say that?”
Fewer than ever, according to The Conference Board, the business policy organisation, which last week reported a substantial decline in employee happiness. Only half of Americans were satisfied with their jobs, down from almost 60 per cent in 1995. Only 14 per cent of today's employees said they were “very satisfied” with their work. One-quarter said they were simply “showing up to collect a paycheck”.
It made little difference how much employees earned or how old they were. Those earning more than $50,000 (￡26,000) a year were a little happier than those earning less than $15,000, but not much. Nor was discontent confined to the PlayStation generation. The sharpest decline in workplace happiness was among workers aged 35 to 44, with the second biggest fall among the 45- to 54-year-olds.
Forty per cent of employees felt disconnected from their employers and two-thirds said they did not identify with their employers' business goals.
Watson Wyatt, the consultancy, said its own survey showed that only 51 per cent of US employees had trust and confidence in their companies' leaders. In the UK, fewer than one-third had any confidence in their company leaders.
You can have some fun with these statistics (as my colleague Jonathan Guthrie does on the next page). But we do not need surveys to verify the evidence of our own eyes and ears. A visit to a hotel or a call to a call centre on either side of the Atlantic will confirm that workers are grumpier than they were a decade ago and customer service worse.
Why are workers so miserable? The Conference Board and Watson Wyatt offered several explanations corporate scandals, poor communications and outsourcing among them. But none of these stack up. Corporate scandals affected a handful of companies. Very few business leaders are criminally corrupt and their employees know that. Poor corporate communication is nothing new; indeed, companies probably tell their staff more than ever.
Outsourcing is a likelier explanation, but it is only part of the story. The majority of workers are unaffected by outsourcing. Most people hold on to their jobs for as long as they ever did. The idea that work has become transient and that companies have slimmed to a core of permanent jobs and outsourced the rest is a myth.
In both the UK and the US, there has been some decrease in male job tenure and an increase in how long women stay with one company. However, the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development says average UK job tenure has remained stable for the past 30 years. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there has been little, if any, decline in job stability in the past 20 years. The bureau reported last year that half of employees aged 45 and over had been with the same company for more than 10 years.
What outsourcing has done is add to the insecurity of those employees who remain in their jobs. It has also contributed to employees' sense that they have become a business's principal risk-takers.
In a start-up company, it is clear who assumes the risk: the entrepreneur who often has to offer the family home as security for the new enterprise's debts. As companies grow, however, and a new generation of managers rises through the ranks, risk rapidly shifts away from the executive suite.
Top executives certainly put their reputations at risk. Dismissal is public and distressing: witness Carly Fiorina and Harry Stonecipher's recent departures. But huge pay-offs, share options and other perks mean sacked senior executives need never work again. They run no financial risk.
Investors do put their money at risk, but today's shareholders are largely big institutions that can spread their risk by investing widely.
Employees, on the other hand, rarely earn enough to make substantial savings. In the past, their future was secured through a defined-benefit pension plan, guaranteed by the employer. Those plans, however, are being replaced by riskier defined-contribution schemes.
Usually, those asked to assume a greater risk demand a premium. Employees pushed into less secure pension plans should be insisting on higher salaries to compensate. Some are, but many are in a weak position. This is where outsourcing matters. Even if your job is not outsourced, there is always the threat that it could be. Whether you assemble a car or compile the accounts, someone, somewhere is ready to do the job for a fraction of your salary.
Employees' unhappiness should worry companies. How would they respond if they discovered half their factory equipment was malfunctioning? Some companies may try to do something about employee discontent, but most will shrug it off. The financial cost of restoring staff security is high and the cost of unhappiness is rarely quantified.
This is a gloomy conclusion for grumpy employees, so here is a joke to cheer them up. A human resources executive dies. She arrives at the Pearly Gates, where she hears that her case is so finely balanced that she can choose between heaven and hell.
She is shown around hell by the devil himself. Her old colleagues are all there. They hug her, invite her for a round of golf on a perfectly manicured course and treat her to a lobster dinner. The next day she is shown around heaven. It is perfectly pleasant, with clouds, harps and the rest, but with none of her old pals.
She chooses hell. She walks back through its gates to a completely different scene: it is strewn with rubbish, a cold wind is blowing and her friends are dressed in rags. “I don't understand. This isn't what I saw yesterday,” she tells the devil. “Ah,” the devil replies. “Yesterday we were recruiting you. Today you're staff.”
为何员工如此不快乐
有一回我乘出租车回《金融时报》，司机问我，“我女儿想做记者，你觉得这主意好不好？” “嗯，”我回答说，“反正我是很热爱我的工作的。”出租车司机吃惊地哼了一声，然后接着说：“‘我热爱我的工作。’你知不知道，乘这车的人很少说出这种话的？”
上周，商业政策组织大企业联合会（Conference Board）在一份报告中指出，现在员工的满意感大为下降，目前对工作满意的人比过去任何时候都少。美国只有一半人对自己的工作满意，而1995年，还有60%的人对自己工作满意。如今只有14%的员工说自己对工作“非常满意”，有四分之一的人说自己去上班只是为了“拿自己的一份薪水。”
员工挣多少钱，多大年纪，这都和他们的工作满意度没有多大关系。年收入超过5万美元（2.6万英镑）的人比年收入1.5万美元以下的人满足感只是好一点点。对工作不满意的也不只是玩游戏站（PlayStation）长大的这一代人。工作满足感下降幅度最大的是35-44岁这个群体的人，其次是45-54岁的人。
40%员工觉得自己和雇主没关系，三分之二员工表示不认同雇主的业务目标。
咨询公司华信惠悦（Watson Wyatt）说，该公司的调查显示，美国只有51%员工信任所在企业的领导者，并对他们有信心。在英国，对企业领导有信心的人还不到三分之一。
这些数据您可以继续把玩。但是我们不用问卷调查，光是眼睛看，用耳朵听，也会得出同样结论的。去酒店走一趟，打一次电话给服务中心，我们都会发现，员工比十年前情绪更差，客户服务质量也在下降。
为什么员工会觉得这么不满意呢？大企业联合会和华信惠悦提出了几种解释，其中公司丑闻、沟通不畅、外包居首，但比例都不高。公司丑闻影响到了一些企业。员工也知道企业领导有奸犯科行为的也不多。企业沟通不畅也不是新现象了。事实上，企业和员工的沟通应该比以前更多了。
用外包来解释更为合理，但也只能说明局部问题。大多数员工并不受外包影响。大多数人和过去一样，能够保持自己的工作。有人说现在的工作具有流动性，说企业在削减业务，只保留一些核心的工作，其余职位外包。这些说法都是误区。
在英美两国，男性在同一公司就职年限确实有所下降，但是女性在同一公司就职时间却增加了。英国皇家特许人力资源管理协会（the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development）表示，英国平均就职年限过去30年来并没有变动。美国劳动统计局（Bureau of Labor Statistics）表示，过去20年间，工作的稳定性即便有所降低，降幅也微乎其微。劳动统计局的报告还表示，去年45岁以上员工中有一半人在同一家公司工作了十年以上。
但外包导致从事剩下工作的人缺乏安全感。外包也让员工感觉到自己成了企业主要的风险承担者。
在一家新创企业，风险由谁来担当一清二楚：是创业者，他们经常用自己身家来担保新企业。然而随着企业的发展，新一代管理人升上来，风险就迅速从领导者身上分散开。
当然，高层管理者要为自己的声誉承担风险。他们一旦被解职，都在公众注视之下，他们会承受巨大压力，最近卡莉?费奥瑞纳（Carly Fiorina）和贺师统（Harry Stonecipher）离职事件就是很好的例子。不过，高层经理一旦解职，企业要支付高额遣散费、股票期权和其它津贴，他们或许从此无需工作。他们在财务方面是没有什么风险的。
投资人的资金要承担风险，但是如今的股东大多是大型机构，它们可以通过广泛投资分散风险。
但是员工的收入却无以让他们有过多积蓄。过去，他们的退休计划采用固定利益（defined-benefit）方案，雇主能够保证兑现。但是现在，退休金计划被固定投入（defined contribution）的方案取代，风险有所增加。
通常情况下，人们承担更高风险，就可要求更高价格。员工现在被迫接受风险比较高的退休计划，理应要求增加工资作为补偿。有人确实能在这方面据理力争，但是很多人处在劣势，不具备争的条件。这时候外包的作用就能看出来了。即便你的工作没有被外包出去，将来被外包的风险还是存在。不管你的工作是组装汽车，还是会计做账的，总会有一些地方、有一些人，能够用你薪水的很少一部分，做好同样的工作。
员工的不满足感应该让企业感到担忧。如果企业发现工厂设备有一半运行不良会怎样？员工的不满也是一个道理，有些企业或许会采取一些措施，解决这些不满问题。但是大多数企业却是置之脑后。恢复员工安全感的代价高昂，而不满足感的成本则很难量化。
对发牢骚的员工来说，上述结论确实让人沮丧。所以我来讲个笑话，希望能让他们开心起来。某人力资源总管死了。她来到了天堂的珍珠门前，听说她的情况恰巧进退两便，她可以自己选择去天堂还是地狱。
魔鬼亲自带她参观了地狱。她的老同事都在那里。他们和她拥抱，请她在修剪得很完美的高尔夫球场打了一场球，还请她去吃龙虾大餐。第二天，有人带她参观了天堂。这里很不错，有白云，还有竖琴这些，但是就没有以前那些同伴。
她选择了地狱。她走进地狱之后，却发现了一个完全不同的景象：里面全是垃圾，冷风嗖嗖地在刮，她的朋友们都衣裳褴褛。“我不明白，我昨天看到的可不是这样的，”她对魔鬼说。“啊，”魔鬼回答说。“昨天我们是在招聘你，今天你是雇员了。”
