IWS Documented News DAILY POSTINGS

IWS Documented News Service

_______________________________

Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach

School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies

Cornell University

16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky

New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau

________________________________________________________________________

 

American Psychological Association (APA)

 

2014 WORK AND WELL-BEING SURVEY [23 April 2014]

http://www.apaexcellence.org/assets/general/2014-work-and-wellbeing-survey-results.pdf

[full-text, 46 pages]

 

Press Release 23 April 2014

April 23, 2014

Employee Distrust is Pervasive in U.S. Workforce

APA survey finds only half of workers believe their employer is open and upfront with them

http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/04/employee-distrust.aspx

 

Executive Summary

•Even as the U.S. economy continues to improve and organizations return to profitability, employers are struggling to rebuild trust with employees. According to APA’s 2014 Work and Well-Being Survey, only about half of employed adults believe their employers are open and upfront with them, about one-third say their employers are not always honest and truthful and almost a quarter say they don’t trust their employers.

–Although nearly two-thirds (64%) of employed adults feel that their organization treats them fairly, only slightly more than half (52%) believe their employer is open and upfront with them.

–Additionally, about one in three (32%) reports that their employer is not always honest and truthful and about one-quarter (24%) goes as far as to say they don’t trust their employer.

•Although the majority of workers (70%) report that they are satisfied with their jobs, less than half continue to be satisfied with the employee recognition practices (47%) and growth and development opportunities (49%) offered by their employer.

•APA’s 2014 Work & Well-Being Survey included the nine-item short version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9), a psychometrically sound, construct-valid measure of work engagement developed by Wilhelm Schaufeli and Arnold Bakker.

•Work engagement is defined as “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption” (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzales-Roma, & Bakker, 2001).

•In contrast with recent reports that have suggested that upwards of 70% of employees in the U.S. are not engaged or are actively disengaged, APA’s Work and Well-Being Survey finds about half of working Americans reporting average levels of engagement, with approximately a quarter reporting low or very low levels and just under a quarter reporting high or very high levels.

–The mean engagement score for working Americans was 3.62 on a six-point scale, with zero representing never being engaged and six representing always being engaged.

•It is clear that when a worker feels valued by their employer, they are more likely to be engaged in their work. Workers that feel valued were significantly more likely to report having high levels of energy, being strongly involved in their work and feeling happily engrossed in what they do.

•Trust and engagement play important roles in the workplace, accounting for more than half of the variance in employee well-being.

–In predicting well-being, engagement and trust accounted for 50.8% of the variance.

•Workers reported having more trust in their companies when the organization recognizes employees for their contributions, provides opportunities for involvement and communicates effectively.

–In predicting trust, employee involvement, recognition and communication predicted 54% of the variance.

•Employees experienced higher engagement when they had more positive perceptions of their employer’s involvement, growth and development and health and safety practices.

–In predicting work engagement, employee involvement, growth and development opportunities, and health and safety efforts accounted for 27.1% of the variance.

•While most employed adults (71%) say they are satisfied with the health and safety practices of their employer, only two in five (40%) report that their organization helps employees develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

•Less than one-third (32%) of working Americans say they regularly participate in the health and wellness programs offered by their employer.

•Employees report that mental health and stress management resources are not widely available to them.

–Less than half of employed adults (45%) report that their employer provides the resources necessary to help meet mental health needs.

–Even fewer report receiving sufficient resources from their employers to help manage stress (36%).

•Less than half of employees (49%) are satisfied with the growth and development opportunities offered by their employer.

•Only four out of ten employed adults reported that their employer provides sufficient opportunities for internal advancement.

•Less than six in ten employed adults (59%) are satisfied with the work-life practices offered by their employers. Less than half (46%) report that their employer has programs and policies that allow employees to be flexible in where, how much and when they work and only about three in ten (29%) say their employers provide benefits that allow them to meet their non-work demands.

•Only 47% of employed adults are satisfied overall with the employee recognition policies of their employer. Fewer than half report that they receive adequate monetary compensation (48%) or non-monetary rewards (42%) for their contributions at work.

•The gender pay gap may be at play, with employed women being less likely than employed men to report that they receive adequate monetary compensation.

•Only 55% of employed adults are satisfied with their employer’s communication practices and less than half report that their employers collect feedback from employees (45%) or make changes based on this feedback (36%). Additionally, just 46% say their employer considers the diversity of its workforce when developing new programs, policies or practices.

•Seven in ten employees said they are motivated to do their best for their employer, but 27% reported that they intend to seek new employment in the next year.

•Only about half (52%) of working Americans said their organizations make them feel valued.

•Employees who report feeling valued are significantly more likely than those who do not feel valued to report that they are satisfied with their job overall and are also more satisfied with other key aspects of growth and development and recognition.

•Employees who feel valued are more likely to be satisfied with their employer’s recognition and health and safety practices than those who do not feel valued. They are also more likely to be in good overall psychological health and less likely to be stressed out during the workday.

•Employed adults who report feeling valued by their employer are more likely to report they are motivated to do their very best for their employer and recommend their workplace to others. They are also less likely to say that they tend to seek employment outside of their company within the next year.

•With regard to overall job satisfaction, Boomer and Gen X employees report slightly higher incidences of overall job satisfaction than Gen Xers or Millennials.

•Millennials are significantly more likely than Gen Xers and Boomers to be satisfied with growth and development opportunities at work and to report they receive non-monetary rewards for their contributions at work.

•Millennials are significantly more likely to say they intend to seek employment outside of their company within the next year, when compared to Gen Xers and Boomers.

•Boomers are significantly less likely to report that their employer provides benefits that allow them to more easily meet their non-work demands, compared to Millennials and Gen Xers.

•Although 61% of employed adults say they have the resources to manage the work stress they experience, almost one-third (31%) report typically feeling tense or stressed out during the workday.

•Low salaries and lack of opportunity for growth and advancement top the list of work stress factors.

•For the fourth year in a row, low salary is the most commonly reported source of work stress.

•Levels of employees reporting a lack of opportunity for growth remain similar to previous years.

•A heavy workload moved out of the top five sources of work stress this year, with job insecurity playing a more significant role in 2014.

•Outside of the top five sources of work stress, too heavy of a workload is less of a contributing factor to stress than it has been in prior years.

•Compared to employees who feel valued at work, those who do not feel valued are significantly more likely to say that a variety of sources of work stress have an impact on their stress level at work. In some cases, more than twice as many of those who do not feel valued report these sources of work stress as having a significant impact.

•Employed Millennials are significantly more likely to report that nearly all measured work factors have a significant impact on their stress levels at work.

•The top sources of workplace stress for Millennials are low salaries (65%), a lack of opportunity for growth and advancement (57%), uncertain job expectations (51%) and long hours (50%).

 

 

________________________________________________________________________

This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.