How do American workers compare with those in other countries?
Recently, Qualtrics (“Ask questions. Get answers. Fast.Easiest to use online survey platform, with over 250 templates to choose from.”) conducted a survey on workers in 14 countries in terms of their productivity, motivation, work/life balance, punctuality, attire, and more. Here are some highlights from the study:
Qualtrics released some surprising — and some not so surprising — findings from its 2016 Global Attitudes Toward Work Report. Some countries are clear frontrunners in productivity and work/life balance, while others are stragglers as regards issues like social media use at work, punctuality, and motivation. About 6,250 respondents in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S. were asked to answer questions about themselves and about the country they live and work in.”
- “People in the U.S. and France seem happiest and most satisfied with their professional lives, while the Germans, Polish, and Dutch rate themselves as the most productive.”
- “Though respondents in all countries surveyed said they primarily work to support themselves and their families financially, other top motivational factors include enjoyment (which came in second for most countries); receiving healthcare benefits (U.S.); feeling like productive members of society (The Netherlands); saving for retirement (Spain); and being with other people (Sweden).”
- “Responses from French and American people were strikingly similar in some categories. Both countries report the greatest satisfaction with their work/life balance [about two-thirds]. And both, along with Germany, report the most overall job satisfaction, with 64 percent in these countries saying they are ‘extremely’ or ‘moderately’ satisfied with their jobs.”
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As I know in China, workers’ lives are hard and stiff, only those senior workers or experts could have good lives like American workers. So called sweat factory, workers’ rights and interests cannot be protected in some developing countries. China’s government spent lots of effort to improve treatment of workers. Hope one day Chinese workers could participate in such research.
If the workers in here means those people work with their skills and physical power, I think these people in US and most developed countries, would absolutely different from workers in developing countries like China. Because of the huge population, some benefits workers could enjoy in US or Australia would be the day dream, such as work/life balance, social security, etc. Also another difference is the innate idea. Due to the historical reason, some people think people work with physical power have lower social status, which indicates they have less benefit than others.
I feel that the countries that utilize their time management the best will be the most satisfied because they are being productive and getting their work done as soon as possible. Some of the most successful people in the world always talk about how it us important to wake up early and start your day rather then sleeping it away and being lazy. Time management is key with becoming successful because it eliminates stress of not accomplishing work on time because you will always be prepared
Due to the different culture and social consciousness, definitely the worker in different countries experience diversity. For example, the U.S workers pay more attention to the value of innovation than Chinese workers, because of distinguishing realization of individual achievement. In turn, the different realization also influence the attitude and evaluation to different occupation. For instance, Chinese people always can’t accept that the jobs such as cementer and plumber are good job, because they think those jobs are manual labor which can be done by everyone without high intelligence and knowledge.
I’d like to talk about the Foxconn. Most workers are in their late teens and early twenties, supplementing their family’s meager farming incomes and seeking their fortune in the big city. Wages average from $1 to $2 an hour, including overtime and depending on location. They are attracted only by impoverished rural standards.
Usually when I think about jobs in other countries I think of those in third world countries who are working in poor conditions. I don’t normally think of all the other countries who have better working conditions such as the ones mentioned in this post. It’s a general agreement that most workers work just to support themselves and their family on top of having money for enjoyment. This just goes to show that we aren’t all so different.
These developed countries being surveyed has an organized system or unions that ensures the worker’s benefits are being achieved or basic needs are being met. However, in many other under-developed or less organized countries in Asia, workers receive barely enough wages to support themselves and their families. Moreover, they do not have the chance to voice their opinions and getting paid in the amount they deserve to while struggling through the tedious and mundane routines each and everyday.
I’m surprised so many Americans are the happiest and most satisfied with their jobs. It seems like all I hear about is how unhappy everyone is to be working. Maybe it’s a tri-state area mind set because people work so hard here in big business jobs. I’m also surprised that people are very satisfied with their work life balance. Like I said, I feel like people are always complaining about where they work and how much they work. There’s apparently never enough time to get everything done, but again, this could be a tri-state area thing. Maybe people down south or out west are happier and working in field that they actually enjoy.
I was very surprised by these results – especially that Americans are the happiest and Italian’s have reported to be the least productive.CNN posted an article that explained in Italy the maximum number of work hours is 40 but the average worker works 36 and overtime is limited to 8 hours a week. I would have expected Italy to report happier than America. I think that the best reason to work is to feel like a productive member of society (like in the Netherlands) because I think people are most likely to feel happy when they feel like they have a purpose (not just for a company but for society as a whole).
As I know in India, workers lives are hard and tough, only senior workers or experts have good lives like American workers. One of the main reasons for this is the development US has been able to reach. Unlike India US has better healthcare and other insurance perks that they get from their jobs, that why American workers happier than workers from other countries.
I am not surprised that respondents from the US stated that the healthcare they get from their work is one of the reasons why they work there. Without getting too political; there are many other developed countries that do healthcare better than the US and hopefully the burden of providing healthcare is taken off the backs of business owners at some point. Sadly, this study also found that most workers in the US and some other countries work to finance their lives and help their families. It does seem kind of crazy that we go to school from ages 8-22 and then work most days from ages 23-67 (or older if you can’t afford to retire). Although most respondents said that they enjoyed the work they did, it was not the primary reason that they work the jobs they do. Furthermore, respondents said that they were satisfied with their jobs, especially in Germany, France and the US. You know how that old saying goes; if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.
“People in the U.S. and France seem happiest and most satisfied with their professional lives, while the Germans, Polish, and Dutch rate themselves as the most productive.” This is an interesting statement due to the fact that I personally never would have thought that people in the U.S. seem most happiest and most satisfied with their professional lives. I always hear people complaining about their jobs saying how they don’t really enjoy what they do etc, so hearing this statement came as a surprise to me.
The difference with workers in the US and China are that despite their crazy work hours and mass efficiency, that’s all they do. They work, work, and work. Here in the US, we take it for granted sometimes when we complain about having to work eight hours or work late. The conditions and the lifestyles we live are so great that people sometimes don’t even realize how lucky we really are. Yes, there may be some regulations here and there, but they don’t compare to the notion of “Big Brother Is Watching You” in China. Obviously things aren’t perfect, but they could be a lot worse.
I found this article interesting because it tells us how people in different countries view working by surveying people from fourteen different countries. It surveyed if people enjoyed their jobs, if they were satisfied with their jobs, and if they felt that they were productive members of society, as well as other questions. It was really insightful to see how people view their jobs in other countries and the responses to the different questions asked in the survey.
This article was very fascinating I would never have thought how similar French and American workers could be. It is very interesting when thinking of different work ethics and behaviors all around the world. It is easy to think that everything that happens in America happens in the world but it is very eyeopening to think of different work environments around the world!