idealpeople blog

We spotted an interesting article one of our fave glossy magazines Information Age by Gareth Morgan which talks about recent survey conducted by Badenoch and Clark, a Recruiting Agency, which has revealed some altogether unsurprising results. According to this research, a quarter of all IT workers are unhappy in their careers, and almost a third of them are worried about job security.
IT has always been an industry renowned for it’s ‘ups and downs’ (compare if you will the fun and lucrative rates of Y2K versus the scary quagmire of the post dot com fallout…) but most of the people we talk to at Idealpeople who are looking for work seem to accept their fate in a ‘transitional’ career, and are never too surprised at being made redundant.

However, these statistics are worrying.

In terms of being totally unsatisfied with their lot, IT scored 25% on the unhappy-o-meter, so IT pro’s are certainly less happy than workers in sectors such as Accountancy, Travel and Healthcare.

Naturally, the new year presents a time for ‘career reflection’ but this survey is showing us nothing new. B&C have been conducting this same research for several quarters now, and things seem to indicate more people being disaffected, rather than a situation that is improving.

Although mostly we blog about Recruiting, it seems like employee happiness and retention should be a high priority for those businesses with a people-intensive business model or a large IT workforce.

It’s possible that the answer to this particular conundrum lies with people in Human Resources.

However, what we didn’t tell you is that the only category of employees who are more disaffected and unsatisfied with their careers are… that’s right, you guessed it… it’s HR Professionals! These poor souls scored 4% higher on the unhappy-o-meter at a massive 29% being utterly miserable at work.

Percentage of unhappy workers by Job Function…
1) HR - 29%
2) IT - 25%
3) Travel & Tourism - 24%
4) Accountancy - 24%
5) Healthcare - 23%
[National average - 21%]

FUN is the Solution

For what it’s worth, our own take on this here at Idealpeople towers is that work should be made to be more FUN. FUN at work is a natural catalyst for employee happiness, and therefore retention. Scott McNealy, Chairman of Sun Microsystems, is a great advocate of FUN at work, and in the older days of Sun they outdid almost all their competitors on employee satisfaction and retention (trust us, we wasted weeks trying to persuade people to leave, and couldn’t!).

Sun made FUN an intrinsic part of their working culture through their “Play Hard, Work Smarter” approach to employee care (Water Pistol Fights at the PC, Fun@Sun Committee, Paid Travel Excursions, BBQs that C-level Management Attended, Entertainment Discounts, Sponge Bricks Being Thrown Around the Office, and even ‘Mockery’ of Competitors, Lack of Formality, Flat Structure). Whilst Employee Mottos like “Kick Butt and Have Fun!” might seem a little dated, trite, or US-style nowadays, there’s no denying that, for Sun - FUN is embedded in both their internal and external Employer Brand.

So is FUN the answer to redressing the balance on employee retention and happiness?

We think so. In fact, on the Sun website we found with employee testimonials (14 employees), The word FUN occurs in 50% of these testimonials!

We interviewed a Former Sun Employee who served there from 1986 through to 2004. Whilst he asked for his identity to be protected, he gave us some valuable insights here into how it was to work in a fun company:

“The catalysts for the great FUN elements at Sun Microsystems (especially in those early days) were fast growth, success, and the fact we were seen as a Market Leader. People were knocking on the doors to buy our products, rather than us knocking on theirs – and this made you feel you were working in an enjoyable place – and going places. But what really made it fun were the other elements – such as the accessible, flat management ‘style’, having a visible CEO who wasn’t afraid to publicly ‘poke fun’ at competitors, the events, the employee inductions, the Fun@Sun committee, all these added up to something we felt was unique”

We asked him if he thought this helped retention of IT Staff.

“Sure thing, I think there was a general sense (because of the fun aspects in no small part) that to leave Sun to go somewhere else would be a real step down”

We hope after reading this, you all do something today to increase the fun-ness of your workplace and to increase your happiness quota. Miserably Unhappy IT staff are inevitably less productive, and more likely to leave you.

Don’t forget the FUN factor. How FUN is your workplace?