City and Guilds HAPPINESS Index 2008

Sky-high salaries fail to please UK workers - Fifth annual Happiness Index reveals the
secret to job satisfaction - [04 Jun 2008]

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

1
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

The City & Guilds Happiness Index – Happiest professions

Position Profession

1 Beauty Therapists

2 Hairdressers

2 Armed Forces

4 Catering/Chefs

5 Retail Staff

6 Teachers

6 Marketing/PR

6 Accountants

9 Secretaries/Receptionists

9 Plumbers

9 Engineers

9 Architects

13 Journalists

13 Mechanics/Automotive

13 Human Resources

16 Call Centre

17 IT Specialists

2
17 Nurses

17 Banker/Finance

17 Builders/Construction

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:

1. Develop reward and recognition policies not based on monetary benefits.

2. In particular, consider the introduction of flexible working wherever possible.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Wherever possible give employees a sense of autonomy over their workloads. People
thrive when they have independent control over their own projects.
6. 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

3
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.