One of the benefits of the mobile phone culture is the ease with which one can do informal social research. It may not be kosher to eavesdrop on one half of a private conversation, but I figure that people who choose to loudly air their wares are willing subjects. This year I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the Out-Loud Index.
My research findings can be summarized thus: people in ATM queues, on trains and in supermarkets are feeling over-stretched at work.
They feel their challenges are misunderstood. They frequently feel unacknowledged and under-rewarded. They have little or no remaining loyalty to their employing organisations or their managers. They are often sticking it out until something better comes along – or so they say.
These people feel – in fact know – that they are doing the jobs of two or three others. They know this because those other jobs used to exist. Sometimes it’s a former colleague on the other end of the phone.
These people are not just ‘front-liners’. They are supervisors and managers too. They work in large organizations and small, private corporations and the public service. They are both young and not-so-young.
And it’s not just the Out-Loud Index that provides this view of the working world. The Bleating Blog Index and the Tell-Me-Your-Challenges-in-a-Management-Workshop-Index follow the same trend. In the world of more scientific research, a large U.S. survey in 2005 found decreasing levels of job satisfaction across industries and demographics.
Of course all of this could be discounted as the ‘same old same old’. People have always complained about their work. No doubt the pyramid builders would have had a gripe or two to relay through their hieroglyphs, and the Viking oarsmen can’t have been too rapt in their conditions. And shouldn’t all those people on mobiles just be grateful they have a job?
On the other hand, surely we can do better than this. Surely it is possible to have productive people who are also happy. Surely it is possible to have success in a capitalist society without wringing the very last drop from everyone who works.
Of course it is. The paradox here is that those organizations who win ‘employer of choice’ type awards are also some of the most successful. Building a happy, engaged workforce is an investment, not a cost.
Where is your organization? Does it hearten or dishearten? If the latter, what can you do next year to make a difference? The answer is not complicated. It’s commitment. Perhaps a new year’s resolution would be a good place to start.
And, by the way: remember to keep it down when using your mobile in public. You never know who might be listening.
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I've been work- ing in business, one way or another, for the last 20 years, and writing for the last ten. My main interest now is to get messages across - yours and mine - in a readable and approachable fashion. 
