59% employees not happy at work, retail and e-comm unhappiest: Survey

Fifty-nine per cent of the workforce in India is not happy at work, and a higher percentage of men are happy compared to women, according to a new survey by media and entertainment firm House of Cheer.

Among sectors, healthcare and pharmaceuticals (51 per cent) has the highest number of happy employees while retail and e-commerce (25 per cent) has the lowest, revealed the report titled “Happiness at Work: How Happy is India’s Workforce?”.

The survey conducted by House of Cheer and its branch, Happyness.me, covered 18 sectors and 1,360 respondents whose average age was 33 years.

The relatively new concept of workplace happiness stems from direct experiences of employees with their employer and their organisation, the report says. “This happiness at work results in favourable feelings towards the work environment, colleagues, supervisors, and organisations at large. It is also a result of employee commitment to the employer and satisfaction with their job profile and leadership,” it adds.

Happy employees are more productive, provide better services, likely to stay twice as long and are generally healthier, it points out. According to the report, workplace happiness is a combination of both psychological and workplace-specific factors. Greater autonomy and belongingness at work contribute to higher workplace happiness, while high stress and low work-life balance contribute to lower workplace happiness, it says.

A variation in the happiness index is seen in terms of gender, with only 37 per cent of women claiming to be happy at the workplace compared to 45 per cent men. Also, full-time (44 per cent) employees are happier than part-time (25 per cent) ones.

The blurring of boundaries between the personal and professional life during the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant switch to work-from-home and flexi work models have only emphasised the importance of workplace happiness and employee well-being, as observed by the report. Not surprisingly, one of the insights shows that 59 per cent employees are seeking flexible working while 41 per cent prefer work from home.

Further, the report says that employees who wish to leave their jobs (41 per cent) are not unhappy people but are particularly unhappy at work.

More women (62 per cent) than men (58 per cent) also showed high intention to quit their current jobs. Men and women have different reasons for intending to leave their jobs. The reasons for men include being older (Gen X and Boomers), having fewer children, and lower workplace happiness, while for women greater stress is a major reason. Two common reasons for both men and women to quit are more interference between work and personal lives, and greater general well-being.

The survey also found no variation across generations when it comes to intent to quit.

“In contrast to the lower percentage of people reporting high workplace happiness, 65 per cent of the people reported high levels of general well-being suggesting that more employees are happy in general as compared to being happy at the workplace,” the report says.

The report also recommends steps for organisations to build a happier workforce. Broadly, the suggestions are: introduce more flexible work models; encourage autonomy; establish strong boundaries between the personal and the professional; decrease turnover through instituting people-centric practices (the study shows that lower workplace happiness leads to higher turnover intention, and vice versa); and pay attention to the individual needs of employees.

In its conclusion, the report says: “The key takeaway of this work was that workplace and general happiness are not synonymous and in order to maximise happiness at work, it becomes extremely important to shift to a more holistic approach where the two are brought together in a more constructive manner than at present.”