Take This Job and Shove It (when the recession is over...but not before then, o.k.?)

I read an article on Tuesday describing how American's job satisfaction has reached an all time low and I can't stop thinking about how important this is. Often times we ignore information that is not readily quantifiable in favor of hard statistical numbers like GDP or employment. We do so at our own peril because often times it is this qualitative information that could tell us the most about the economy and our society.

I have really had only five jobs in my life. I started out working in my family's retail stores, worked as a bartender and waitress in college and graduate school, became a fisherman for a few years, worked as a loan officer, and have finally ended up in a position that I studied and trained for. There were things I loved about each of those jobs but when I stop and think about it, the things I loved most in each job were largely non-pecuniary. I loved the freedom of being on the ocean, the camaraderie in the retail and restaurant industry, and in academia I love that I basically get paid to get smarter and in turn, use that ability to make other people smarter. The only time that my pay was the most important factor in my job satisfaction was when I was a loan officer and working on commission. I tolerated a psychotic back stabbing boss, bitchy coworkers, hideous hours, and crazy customers because I made a lot of money.

My experience has taught me that money does matter in how we look at job satisfaction but the truth is it matters more to people when the non-financial factors are not favorable. One might tolerate lower wages if they like their coworkers, feel like they are valued by management, or find their job truly interesting. What happens if someone feels underpaid in an uninteresting job with crappy managers and obnoxious coworkers? The answer is that they are less productive and innovative. The more of these unhappy workers in a firm the less competitive that business will be. The more of these unhappy workers in the economy the less competitive the economy will be.

We know that incomes and wages matter in job satisfaction and in how hard we will work at our jobs but I don't think we have paid enough attention to the fact that the structure of the economy has been dictating a fair share of people's job satisfaction for some time. Most recently, we should have been wary during the economic "growth" preceding this recession because it was not accompanied by inflation. I know we are told inflation is a bad thing and it is when there is too much and it is artificially created but true economic growth should result in some inflation. When the economy is growing wages and overall demand should rise, resulting in some inflation. During the huge consumer spending expansion and the housing market growth from about 2003 to the middle of 2007 we really didn't have inflation to speak of and wages and incomes did not rise.

In a nutshell, the U.S. emerged from the 2000-2001 recession only to enter a period of economic growth that wasn't real. A vital component of economic well being is household income which reached a peak in 1999 and has not returned to that level. No wonder people are unhappy with their jobs: It's The Economy Stupid!

So people's incomes don't rise and they get crankier at work then we enter a recession and they feel trapped because there are fewer opportunities outside of their company. Then people fear they will lose their jobs and coworkers start behaving badly, management quits talking to the workers, layoffs happen and morale plummets. That can all explain why more than half of American workers are not satisfied with their jobs.

The real question is how do we fix this? It can't be solved at the aggregate level by a Job Satisfaction Stimulus Bill but it can be solved at the firm or employer level. The firms (or state agencies, universities, etc..) that will be most successful coming out of this recession will be the those that pay attention to job satisfaction. Individual firms cannot control the success of the entire economy but they can take control of their internal economics. These are the factors I think that matter at the organizational level:

1. How a firm handles layoffs. Those that layoff based on tenure and seniority will have issues. Innovation, productivity and adaptation are the keys to future success so layoffs should be handled in a way that focuses on retaining the best and brightest not the oldest and grayest. I think identification of critical workers who are key assets is monumentally important. It may seem counterintuitive and unpopular but organizations that trim the most fat will fare the best and do the most for the economy moving forward. Temporarily layoffs do hurt the economy and the morale at the firm level but this creates the opportunity to be innovative and responsive. It allows the business to better reward its valuable assets, the employees who stay, with higher wages rather than having the best and brightest have their wages constrained by the overall labor pool.

2. Awareness of Sense of Community. When there is a sense of teamwork and community within an organization productivity and innovation grow. A friend of mine who works for a Fortune 1o0 company calls herself a "true believer", meaning she agrees with the mission statement of her company, trusts completely in management's decisions, and feels she is a part of a team and something bigger than herself. If everyone were like her this economy would be productive as hell but I digress. Not everyone has this mindset when they start with a company, it needs to be cultivated. It is cultivated through the organization's culture and through both finanical and non-financial benefits to the employees. The culture from top to bottom must reward the same behaviors and must evaluate outcomes in a systematic manner, there cannot be different rules for different people based on status or tenure. Benefits, whether vacation and sick time or health insurance, must be balanced with wages and non-financial benefits like Ping Pong in the break room to create a place people want to be. This ensures that your top talent stays after the economy recovers rather than jumping ship.

3. Healthy Competition among Employees: When there are not clear directives and communication in a firm, unhealthy competition tends to emerge. This is where those who know how to play the game and manipulate get ahead at the expense of more talented people who don't want to play games. Healthy competition on the other hand makes everyone better and no one knows this better than sales professionals. A little competition that results in more recognition, more pay, or a few extra vacation days can go along way in promoting productivity and innovation. It's all about the incentives you provide workers.

I'm going to stop now with suggestions because I just realized that what was a simple curiosity about why people are unhappy at their jobs has turned into a management lesson.

Beyond the firm level though I think the decline in job satisfaction also means we need to look at our educational system and our expectations about the economy and work in general. Workers under 25 had the highest levels of dissatisfaction. This is due in part to the impact the recession has had on recent college graduates looking for their first job but may also reflect the fact that students educations are not a good match for the job market. This might mean that business needs to be more involved in secondary education.

I think its time all organizations care about the job satisfaction of their employees, if they don't they might end up like Initech.

*For the record I do like my job but if they take away my stapler bad stuff will happen.