Workers are Unhappy with their jobs

From Management Issues
Australia may be renowned for its quality of life, but the quality of its managers just doesn't stack up. More than half of Australians are unhappy with their jobs, new research has found, with poor management the overwhelming reason for their discontent.

The dire state of management in Australian organisations is revealed in the annual SEEK Survey of Employee Satisfaction and Motivation in Australia – a title that is something of misnomer given the shortage of satisfaction in Australia's workplaces. More than half (56 per cent) of those surveyed said they were unhappy with their jobs, a rise of 11 percentage points over last year.

Yet as Matthew Rockman, Executive Director of SEEK pointed out, the figures come at a time when Australia's unemployment rate has hit a twenty eight year low, meaning that employees are now faced with more choice than ever before.

"With unemployment being so low, Australian companies are sitting on a potential powder-keg, unless management begins to address staff issues, to keep morale high and employees satisfied with their roles," he said.

All of this comes at the same time as people in Australia are listening to the final debate on the IR legislation.

Is this information right?

If it is then why is there such a huge debate about workers' rights being in peril as a result of the IR legislation? Workers, according to this information have the upper hand. They are able to walk in and out of jobs at will and can make or break companies by whether or not they choose to work or not.

More to the point what is the view of the people who are working in jobs on which they rely to be in a position to pay off their mortgages and to keep their families from the bread line?

The criticism of bosses in Australia is not new. In 2003 the following was said:

The UK's much-criticised managers might be releaved to find out that they are not the only ones in the firing line.

A survey by organisational development specialist Human Synergistics has found that a whopping 87 per cent of Australian companies have management cultures wracked by "blame, mindless conformity and indecision", while their managers lack basic skills such as setting goals, using rewards, giving feedback, and conducting fair appraisals.

". . .executive behaviour bred a culture that encouraged people to treat rules as more important than ideas, switch priorities to please others, avoid taking any blame for problems, follow orders even when they were wrong, defer decisions to people higher up the food chain and not rock the boat."