As UK workers face rising living costs and ever-longer working hours, they are sending a surprising message to their employers: the size of payslips do not guarantee happiness and fulfilment at work.

According to the fifth annual City & Guilds Happiness Index published today, financial rewards are not the answer to job satisfaction. Instead, having an interest in what you do for a living is the number one factor for ensuring on-the-job contentment. Happiness levels remain constant regardless of salary.

A keen interest in the job not only secures workplace happiness but is the main reason for workers in the UK choosing to stay with their employer:

• 57 per cent of us have remained with our present employer as a result of a strong interest in what we do for a living
• 56 per cent stay because of good relationships with colleagues
• 48 per cent of the UK’s workforce appreciates their work / life balance
• In contrast, only 44 per cent of us remain in the job as a direct result of salary

These factors have led beauty therapists to push hairdressers off the top spot in the 2008 Happiness Index, with one in three registering a happiness level of 10 out of 10. At the other end of the scale builders and bankers were the least happy with their working lives.

Rather than modernising and expanding their reward packages in line with employee expectations, the City & Guilds Happiness Index shows that employers’ offerings are out of touch. While 43 per cent of managers offer bonuses, only one in five are adopting flexible working practices, despite work-life balance being a demonstrated, major driver of happiness at work. Tellingly, only one in 10 managers allow their employees to work from home.

Bob Coates, Managing Director of City & Guilds said:

“With a clear impact on the bottom line, improving workplace happiness is rising up the business agenda and employers cannot afford to ignore it.  Companies can no longer rely on those established reward and recognition policies that fail to resonate with employees and do little to combat stress levels in the workplace. By taking such a blinkered approach, they risk the rise of an unmotivated and unproductive workforce, and even potentially losing their staff to competitors.”

Professor Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University, worked with City & Guilds to analyse the findings of the Happiness Index, providing employers with advice on how to improve happiness levels among their staff. Commenting on the findings, Professor Cooper said:

“The City & Guilds Happiness Index provides a call to action for the business community to rethink its reward and recognition strategies and consider employees’ needs on an individual basis. It marks the end of an era for organisation wide HR policies. From now on a flexible approach is needed if businesses are to create a happy, and by association productive, workforce.”

The UK’s happiest worker profile
• Female
• Beauty Therapist
• Over 60 years old
• From North East 

The UK’s unhappiest worker profile
• Man
• Builder
• 40-49 year old
• From Northern Ireland

For further information about the 2008 Happiness Index and to download a full press pack visit www.cityandguilds.com/happiness

ENDS

Notes to Editors

For more information please contact Hannah Crowley, Carolyn Walker, Vicki Leverett or Nina Eastman on 020 7260 2700 or firstname.surname@bluerubicon.com

The City & Guilds Happiness Index – Happiest professions 

What is the Happiness Index

The City & Guilds Happiness Index provides an annual snapshot of how happy and fulfilled we are in our jobs. Using a sample of the population, the survey measures how satisfied people are in a range of jobs, highlighting contributors to happiness and how these factors change over time.

Advice for employers

Acting on his findings, Professor Cooper makes five clear recommendations to business to help improve their employees’ happiness levels:

• Develop reward and recognition policies not based on monetary benefits. In particular, consider the introduction of flexible  working wherever possible.
• Provide employees with a varied workload, to test the full spectrum of their job role. This will allow them to try different tasks whenever possible. If an interest in what we do for a living is the main driver of workplace happiness, then variation is critical to a developing a stimulating and happy working environment.
• Develop strong management skills utilising praise and reward to motivate staff. If 89% of your female workforce views relationships with management as critical to their workplace happiness, it is time to ensure you have the skills to manage them well. Request management training if necessary.
• Wherever possible give employees a sense of autonomy over their workloads. People thrive when they have independent control over their own projects.
• Consistently working long hours reduces productivity and destroys work / life balance, a key contributor to workplace happiness especially for the 40 to 49 age group. Ensure all your employees have a clearly defined exit time and strive to remove any tendencies towards a long hours culture.

About the research

The research was undertaken by The Survey Shop in March / April 2008 and is based on a sample of 1,000 employees across 20 professions. In addition to these findings further polling was carried out by ICM in March 2008 into the differing happiness levels across the nation by region and age. Analysis of the data was provided by Professor Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University.

About City & Guilds

City & Guilds (http://www.cityandguilds.com/ ) is the expert and leading authority in vocational education and training - both in the UK and beyond.
In operation for the last 130 years, City & Guilds is the UK’s leading awarding body for work-related qualifications. Twenty million people in the UK have City & Guilds qualifications, and the organisation awards a further 1.5 million qualifications to learners every year.
City & Guilds also enables people to develop essential leadership and management skills through its Institute of Leadership and Management, which is the largest provider of management qualifications in Europe.
City & Guilds creates prosperity from skills for individuals, business and nations within and beyond the workplace.