SA - the land of happy workers?

File picture: Ronen Zvulun

File picture: Ronen Zvulun

Published Dec 1, 2015

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London - South Africa came a remarkable fifth in the 30th Global Workforce Happiness Index, which ranks countries according to the happiness and loyalty of their workforce.

Swedish employer branding expert Universum surveyed 250 000 professionals in 55 markets and calculated the ranking on factors such as employees’ satisfaction at their current job, the likelihood of recommending their current employer and their stated sense of job loyalty.

The top three countries in terms of employee happiness were Belgium, with a score of 33.42, followed by Norway and Costa Rica.

Denmark was fourth and South Africa was fifth.

The UK ranked 30th on the list. Morocco, Nigeria and Japan came at the bottom.

Tom Verbeke, head of international HR at CommScope, said that, on the surface, Belgian workers seem to be less interested in considering alternative employment and showed a relatively high satisfaction rate.

“Under influence of increased talent competition, changing generational values and expectations, and a globalising marketplace, companies face the challenge to maintain their core strength and retain key talent, but balance this with increasing flexibility and finding core capabilities and talent out in the market,” Verbeke said.

Employee turnover is increasing.

In 2018, 49 million more employees will leave their current employers than in 2012 – representing 192 million employees worldwide moving jobs.

The survey aims to establish benchmarks for employee happiness and help companies plan improvements accordingly.

“More and more companies are deploying analytic solutions to help predict retention and correlate factors such as compensation, travel schedule, manager and demographics, to understand why certain people are less engaged than others,” said Josh Bersin, a principal at Deloitte Consulting.

The 10 countries where people enjoy working the most:

1. Belgium

2. Norway

3. Costa Rica

4. Denmark

5. South Africa

6. Austria

7. Switzerland

8. Greece

9. Czech Republic

10. Russia

THE INDEPENDENT & THE MERCURY

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