Can't Get No, Satisfaction

As companies struggle to negotiate the challenging economy by reducing cost (marketing budgets, sales budgets, operational cost, lower inventory...) workers that remain are reporting more desponded attitudes. The Conference Board research group who has conducted the study for the last 22 years reports the lowest level of satisfied workers at 55% of the workforce. This is 4% decline from 2008.

Workers have grown steadily more unhappy for a variety of reasons:

*Fewer workers consider their jobs to be interesting.
*Incomes have not kept up with inflation.
*The soaring cost of health insurance has eaten into workers' take-home pay.

As a result of this study experts predict that innovation and competitiveness will fall thus producing companies that will struggle to survive and the development of younger workers will fall short.

The challenge is to not only find workers that are passionate about the company's products/services but also workers that have a passion for their job responsibilities. In further, workers may not be in the industry that they are completely passionate about but are doing a job that they have a passion for. Example would be a person that has worked in logistics for a wholesale food service company but with economy must now find work as a logistics manager for a trucking company that is a CPG distributor.

As leaders we must find what employees "hot buttons" are then inspire, motivate and provide feedback.