Three Signs of a Miserable Job

A recent Gallup poll found that 77% of people hate their jobs. Gallup also contends that this ailing workforce is costing employers more than $350 billion dollars in lost productivity.
The primary source of job misery and the potential cure for that misery resides in the hands of one individual – the direct manager. There are countless studies confirming this statement, including both Gallup and The Blanchard Companies. Both organizations have found that an employee’s relationship with his/her direct manager is the most important determinant to employee satisfaction (over pay, benefits, perks, work-life balance, etc.).
Even employees who are well paid, do interesting work and have great autonomy, cannot feel fulfilled in a job if their managers are not providing them with what they need on a daily or weekly basis.

What are the Three Signs of a miserable job?
According to PatrickLencioni: The first is anonymity, which is the feeling that employees get when they realize that their manager has little interest in them as human beings, and that they know little about their lives, their aspirations and their interests.
The second sign is irrelevance, which takes root when employees cannot see how their job makes a difference in the lives of others. Every employee needs to know that the work they do impacts someone’s life – a customer, a co-worker, even a supervisor – in one way or another.
The third sign is something I call immeasurement, which is the inability of employees to assess for themselves their contribution or success. Employees who have no means of measuring how well they are doing on a given day or in a given week, must rely on the subjective opinions of others, usually their managers’, to gauge their progress or contribution.

Lencioni's advice for you if you qualify as one who has a "miserable job" coming up in my next post.