Research and consultancy firm Universum took part in a worldwide research drive to examine the involvement and work happiness of staff. This has been an ongoing effort since 2012 to attempt to measure the precise happiness of employees in major countries. The survey covered more than 250 thousand employees in 55 different countries. These results are then used to calculated the Universal Global Workforce Happiness Index.
This index is based on:
Employee in the current job,
Likelihood that the current employer is recommended to others, and
How loyal employees feel about their current job / employer.
From here, an average life evaluations is made, where 0 represents the worst possible life and 10 the best possible for each state. Around Three-quarters of all the differences between states countries, even those in the same regions, can be accounted for by the differences found in six key variables. These are: GDP per capita, healthy years of life expectancy, social support, trust, perceived freedom to make life decisions, and generosity. Along with this, the differences in social support, incomes, and healthy life expectancy are also considered to be three very important factors.
Employees are divided into a model with four quadrants. Here, we see which of these four broad groups takes precedent in a given country:
Stranded: employees are dissatisfied with their current job, but unmotivated or unwilling to do anything about it.
Seekers: dissatisfied with their current job and look for another job.
Restless: employees need immediate attention. Although they are satisfied and recommend their employer, but they are open to a different job.
Fulfilled: employees are happy, are positive towards their employer and are not open for another job.
Based on these results, employees in the Netherlands seem to be reasonably happy, though Belgium has the most satisfied employees.
Next, for each country, it is examined what quadrant employees mostly fall under.For example, Japanese workers are the least satisfied with their employers, and often do not recommend others to their employer. Therefore, they fall under the 'seekers' catagory. However, not everyone is looking actively for another job, which would also place them in the 'stranded' quadrant.
Employees in Turkey and Lebanon are particularly 'stranded'. In South and Central American countries such as Mexico, Panama, Colombia, and Peru people are more restless. The same also applies to most employees in the United States. In many African and Asian countries precisely often actively looking for another job.
The most satisfied employees (fulfilled) are located in Europe, with Belgium, Norway and Denmark taking the lead positions. South Africa is also highly rated in the fulfilled quadrant. The fulfillment of Dutch employees is placed towards the bottom of this quadrant, where they take much more precedent in the restless catagory. Employers therefore important to devote immediate attention, according to Universum.
There is, of course, the issue of subjectivity in the index. It is difficult to subscribe an entire countries worth of employees into any one of the quadrants. Many countries hold significant percentages in other sectors as well. This means that, while an interesting and useful guide to the general wellbeing of employees within a state, it cannot be used as concrete evidence for every employee from each country.