Whoever wins the rat race is still a rat
One of the most powerful ways in which you can influence the world around you is through the work that you choose to do. Your work, paid or unpaid, is important not only for your own well-being but also for its wider impact on society and on the environment.
A sustainable job is one which you feel happy to go to because the work you do is rewarding and you return home satisfied. A job you could do for the rest of your life without getting burned out.
Unfortunately, this kind of job is increasingly hard to find. In an effort to reduce costs and remain ‘competitive’ in the global market employers are driving down wages, shedding jobs and issuing only short-term, temporary contracts.
These cost-cutting measures prove counterproductive for employers. Unhappy workers are far more likely to avoid work or phone in sick. In Jersey the cost of sickness and absenteeism to the public sector alone is estimated at around £10 million every year (Public Accounts Committee, 2004).
An increasing number of people appear to feel unhappy, overworked and underpaid in their work. The recent British Social Attitudes survey (2004) revealed that only 36 per cent of those surveyed were happy in their jobs. More than half reported at least one of the following:
The latest Census figures reveal that in Jersey the average working week is 39 hours (States of Jersey, 2005). This compares favourably both with the UK average of 44 hours and the EU average of 40 hours (European Trade Union Conference). Nevertheless, 'time stress' has been identified as the second most significant factor influencing the health of people in Jersey (Jersey Health Survey, 1999).
It appears that increasing competition and cost-cutting is creating stress and misery for a substantial proportion of workers, resulting in high rates of sickness and absence. These represent a hidden economic cost to employers and a substantial threat to public health that needs to be addressed.
One way to protect the health and well-being of employees is to ensure that employers create better, more sustainable jobs. In the current economic climate this can only be achieved through greater regulation. The only alternative is for employees to take the initiative and seek out or create their own sustainable work. Which one do you think is more likely to happen?
Have you ever become so completely absorbed in doing something you really enjoy that it felt effortless and you lost all track of time? Psychologists call this state ‘flow’ and athletes call it being ‘in the zone’. It is characterised by a high level of creativity and by maximum performance with minimal effort.
It is reasonable to expect that you will perform better in your job if you are internally motivated and doing something for the sheer pleasure of it rather than for an external reward. The most important component of job satisfaction is whether the work itself is satisying, not how much someone gets paid for doing it. Unfortunately, the majority of people do not appear to get much satisfaction from their job. For them it is simply a means to earn money to keep a roof over their head.
The answer to people's work problems seems obvious. Find something that you love doing, and do enough of it to pay your bills. The reality of living in Jersey's 'growth economy' means that this is not as easy as it sounds. In recent years, economic pressures have reduced the number of jobs in traditional, sustainable sectors such as agriculture and tourism, while the number of people employed in Jersey's finance sector has increased.
Between 1996 and 2005, agriculture shed 660 jobs and tourism a further 1,610. These losses were offset by an increase of 2,020 jobs in the finance sector. By June 2005, a total of 11,830 people or 22.4 per cent of the working population were working in the finance sector.