News Analysis: America’s Dirty Secret—We’re Miserable at Work

A recent New York Times magazine article, “America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable,” suggests that even the nation’s most successful people share a general dissatisfaction with their work—yet another byproduct of the failure of enough CEOs to lead a strategic and systematic approach to engaging all stakeholders. The misery at work belies the adage that people don’t leave companies, they leave their bosses. In fact, people leave companies led by CEOs who fail to understand the importance of culture and who allow bad bosses and a sense of meaningless to thrive. 

 

A New York Times feature article by Charles Duhigg about the author’s classmates from Harvard Business School will sound familiar to most Americans: Many of them, it turns out, are among the 85% of people worldwide that said they hate their work in a 2017 Gallup survey. A 2013 Gallup study similarly found that only 13% of people like to go to work. 

 

A web survey 3,600 people worldwide published in 2013 in Medical Daily found that 47% have “really bad” Sunday night blues, with another 31% reporting bad or slightly bad blues. Only 22% reported feeling no blues at all. Apparently, Sunday night blues are the worst in the U.S., “where 59% of respondents said they dreaded going back to work. Only 19% of respondents said they were happy on Sunday nights.”  

 

Perhaps this is one reason why another Gallup survey found that general “satisfaction with America” has fallen to a historic low of only 28%, despite times of almost historic prosperity. Many factors contribute to dissatisfaction—one’s finances; personal family or social situation; health; lack of vacation time; political views—but with most Americans spending nearly 40% of their waking hours each weekday at jobs most dislike, the failure to engage takes not only a toll on productivity and quality, but on our very life spirit. It’s a miracle that Americans are not up in arms. 

 

Ironically, the New York Times article cataloging the dissatisfaction of the elite would sound familiar to almost any American of working age. Duhigg writes: “Even among my most sanguine classmates, there was a lingering sense of professional disappointment. They talked about missed promotions, disaffected children and billable hours in divorce court. They complained about jobs that were unfulfilling, tedious or just plain bad.” He quotes one colleague: “I feel like I’m wasting my life…My work feels totally meaningless.” His colleagues spoke of ruthless competition, politics and connivery, oppressive hours, an always-on culture, and “an underlying sense that their work isn’t worth the grueling effort they’re putting into it.”

 

The author reaches a revelation that is old news to ESM readers: “This wave of dissatisfaction is especially perverse because corporations now have access to decades of scientific research about how to make jobs better.” The author quotes Adam Grant, a professor of management and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, on the importance of basic financial security, a sense of autonomy and community, and feeling that one’s labors have a sense of purpose. Duhigg quotes Barry Schwartz, a visiting professor of management at the University of California at Berkeley: “You can be a salesperson or a toll collector, but if you see your goal as solving people’s problems, then each day presents 100 opportunities to improve someone’s life, and your satisfaction increases dramatically.” He adds: “We want to feel that we’re making the world better, even it’s a small matter as helping a shopper find the right product at the grocer story.” 

 

U.S. businesses invest at least $100 billion a year at engagement surveys, leadership coaching, motivational speakers, assessment and surveys, communications and learning, diversity, innovation, rewards and recognition, loyalty, benefits, etc. Clearly something is not working. What’s needed are CEO’s committed to a strategic and systematic process for engaging all stakeholders consistent with the logical framework in ISO Annex SL standards, ISO 10018 Quality People Management standards, nine Human Resources standards, and the new ISO 30414 Human Capital Disclosure guidelines.