A recent survey by jobsDB titled, “Happy is a better job” found that 62% Hong Kong employees are not happy at work and 86% said changing job is a wise decision. However, 63% agreed that relationship with bosses and colleagues was the main factor for working happily.
This survey was conducted by the job portal on 7,278 employees from different career backgrounds across Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Hong Kong from May to June this year. Among the factors that make work enjoyable – relationship, salary and work environment as the top three factors, employees in Hong Kong are unhappy with salary, benefits and incentives as the key factor associated with determining happiness.
Instead of money, human factors ranked as the most important reason why a job is enjoyable. More than 60% of Hong Kong respondents said “relationship with colleagues and / or boss” was the primary factor that made them happy (63%), followed by “salary, benefits and incentives” (54%), and “working environment, culture & reputation” (37%).
Singaporeans also agreed harmonious working relations was the main attributor to a happier job, indicating work atmospheres and human relations are very important to employees when accessing the degree of happiness at work. Among the surveyed four countries, Singapore has more happy workers, in comparison with Indonesia, Thailand and Hong Kong. Also interviewees from all regions agreed that changing jobs is a wise decision.
Majority of Singaporeans attributed happiness to their relationships with colleagues and bosses. A good salary and company benefits and incentives were second in contributing the most to their workplace happiness.
See: Hong Kong graduates earn just HK$1,800 more than their predecessors 20 years ago
Commenting about happy workers in Singapore, Chook Yuh Yng, country manager of jobsDB Singapore, said: “At jobsDB, we believe that being happy at work is a priority especially when most Singaporeans spend at least 40 hours at work each week.”
“Our recent “Happy is a Better Job” brand campaign encourages candidates to take a more proactive approach to pursuing job happiness. Knowing that Singaporeans place emphasis on work location, we have recently made search by work location available to candidates on our portal. Sometimes, it’s the little things that mean the most.”
In Hong Kong, for example, nearly 90% of respondents said changing jobs was a good decision as almost half of them reported happier with their new posts (45%). But only 66% said they were planning to change jobs in the next one to two years.
Factors that can prevent one from leaving a company in the city include fears over: “losing job security and tenure” (43%), “not enough jobs in the market” (37%), and “tedious application process” (36%) – a reason that only bothered candidates from Hong Kong.
Justin Yiu, the General Manager of jobsDB Hong Kong said: “salary and working atmosphere, which include human relations and working environment, are the two major factors that make employees happier at work. As the most well-known online job portal in the region, we want to make sure all employees find their happy jobs.”
Through this report, Yiu hopes to provide employers with insights on how to retain talents by taking essential steps to increase staff’s degree of happiness at work.
Also read: Hong Kong Employers Prefer Offering Bonuses and Not Salary Hike to Retain Talent
