According to a CNN Money report, job satisfaction in the United States just hit a 22-year low. More than half of American employees are frustrated by their work.
"The Conference Board's survey polled 5,000 households, and found that only 45% were satisfied in their jobs. That's down from 61.1% in 1987, the first year the survey was conducted. Even though one in 10 Americans is out of a job, those who are employed are increasingly dissatisfied.
'Through both economic boom and bust during the past two decades, our job satisfaction numbers have shown a consistent downward trend,' said Lynn Franco, director of the Consumer Research Center of The Conference Board.
'[That] could spell trouble for the overall engagement of U.S. employees and ultimately employee productivity,' she added."
The recent recession, layoffs, pay cuts and outsourcing promise to make this problem even worse in 2010. In this environment, managers and workers need to discover a new approach to performance improvement.
If we want people to get re-engaged, we need to stop trying to find and fix their flaws. This approach didn't work in the past and it won't work in these troubled times.
Instead of perpetuating failure factories with ineffective conventional strategies, we need to create freak factories, organizations that help people to amplify their unique qualities and contribute the best of themselves each day. We need to stop forcing people to fit in and start helping them freak out.
Find out more about how to improve employee engagement, motivation and productivity in my free e-book The Freak Factory: Making Employees Better by Helping Them Get Worse.
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