Country Rankings of “Whiney Workers”
Monday, June 11th, 2007According to an FDS International study of work attitudes across 23 countries, and including nearly 14,000 workers, the United States ranks 4th in “whiney” workers. A “whiney worker” is unhappy and/or demanding about pay, actual income relative to cost of living, average number of weekly work hours, and work impinging on their private life.
Here’s the lineup.
- France
- United Kingdom (tie)
- Sweden (tie)
- United States
- Australia (tie)
- Portugal (tie)
- Canada(tie)
- Greece(tie)
- Poland
- Germany (tie)
- Spain (tie)
Where are the “least whiney” workers? Ireland, the Netherlands and Thailand.
The Netherlands has the highest morale, and Irish and Thai workers rank second. Japan has the lowest.
Russian workers were most likely to complain about their pay (61%), compared to 43% of Chinese workers, 40% of British workers, and 38% of American workers who expressed dissatisfaction with their compensation. Workers in Ireland and the Netherlands were least likely to complain about their pay.
British workers are demanding about holidays; despite having 33.5 leave days and public holidays.
Only 13% of Irish workers whine about holidays, despite having fewer of them.
“…after France, Britain, and Sweden, the world’s biggest workplace whiners are Americans, despite their having by far the highest levels of income relative to their cost of living. Compare them to Thai workers: while real levels of income are more eight times higher in the United States, more workers in the US feel their pay is a problem than in Thailand.”
(via HR BLR)
Observations:
They weren’t shy on the value judgment of people who participated in the study and expressed honest information. Of course “whiney workers” is catchier, but why not look at it as targeted information that could be used to improve morale, productivity, loyalty and talent retention?
I also see a problem in that we have no indication of any sort of demographic breakdown by job position or class, which would affect the interpretation of results. What is the context? In some places, there may be simple gratitude about having a job, any job, and there is certainly a wide range of available social “safety net” options in different countries and class levels.
What might be the impact of cultural difference? For instance, would people in different places view complaining, demanding, or even sharing negative information differently? Is there any gender difference? Urban vs more rural? Service or manufacturing? Are they comparing apples to oranges in the study?
How would you discriminate between “whining” and the simple expression of real-life problems may have about such things as working too many hours for the pay, or having your job impinge too much on your private life?
Are such studies attempting to say, in effect, “be happy with what you have, there are people worse off than you are” – comparable to the way mothers used to get children to eat food they didn’t like? If so, that strategy isn’t going to work as the talent shortage heats up. U.S. companies that take such an attitude will simply cease to be competitive.
