WORKERS OUTNUMBER HAPPY WORKERS

KUALA LUMPUR: Is the Malaysian workforce plagued with chronically low levels of contentment?

A new survey by JobStreet.com, which drew over 5,200 respondents, suggested that there were twice as many unhappy employees as there were happy employees.

The survey found that 52 per cent of employees were unhappy and feel disengaged within their roles.

Some even felt an extreme degree of discontentment, rating their job happiness a “one” on a scale of one to 11, with 11 representing extreme satisfaction.

Twenty-three per cent felt neutral, while 25 per cent were happy and had a sense of appreciation for their job.

When examining the cause of their dissatisfaction, for yet another year, the “management and leadership team” emerged as the main reason employees were unhappy with their jobs.

The respondents also chose “opportunities for career development” as another contributing factor, followed by “boss or immediate superior”.

The survey also found that many employees felt their current state of gloom would not change within the next six months.

Twenty-nine per cent of these employees believed that the only way to overcome the situation was by finding a new job.

Twenty-five per cent of them were willing to stay if offered an increase in salary.

“Management teams are responsible for leading and motivating their workforce.

“Organisations must invest in training and development courses for their managers.

“They must work with a top-down management style.

“This is because when a good management team is formed, happy employees will follow,” said country manager of JobStreet.com, Chook Yuh Yng.

A total of 5,256 respondents of different age groups, genders and education levels from various industries in Malaysia took part in the survey conducted in July.