How many of us frequently experience Monday blues, when the weekend is over and it’s time to go back to work again? Guilty as charged! However, it looks like just about half of us feel this way because a recent survey showed that 45% of Malaysians actually look forward to going to work.
According to Qualtrics Asia Pacific Employee Pulse Study, the survey canvassed countries around the world, including New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Australia. People in Hong Kong must really dread going into work because they scored only 34% on that scale while our neighbours in Singapore scored 43%.
Meanwhile, Malaysian employees got 51% on the engagement scale – meaning this is how many of us are committed to our jobs and how motivated we are to contribute. New Zealand comes in at 57%. Not bad!
NST reported that we also have the highest level of job satisfaction in the region, coming in at 67%, compared with Singaporeans at 64% and Hong Kong at 50%.
Our long working hours also doesn’t seem bother us, as we have accepted it and the survey shows that often working overtime was not reason enough to change jobs. Yes, we are hardworking!
The survey explained, “Contrary to popular beliefs, long working hours did not necessarily contribute to high employee turnover rates in Malaysia.”
The finance sector people must really love their jobs because the vast majority said they would stay in their current jobs, with only 11% saying that they would leave due to the long hours. However, 25% of media and advertising employees said they choose to leave if they had to work overtime.
Another interesting trend discovered by Qualtrics is that employees in the travel and leisure, retail, and utilities field are the ones that look forward to going to work most of the time as travel and leisure recorded 60%, retail (64%) and utilities (100%), all far higher than the national average.
Not surprisingly, the most important factor to create a satisfactory environment at work is having a great work-life balance and for millennials, they discovered that the second driver was having opportunities for career progression in the company.
Okay, now time to get back to work!
Also read: Man Works 12 Hrs Daily for 7 Years with Unpaid OT, Sues Boss and Wins RM450,000