The demands of modern workplace have been challenging employees to keep moving faster to meet the bigger loads of work and sink into the bustle. That being said, it comes as no surprise that people often spend more time in the office and deal with work-related matters than at home, including Malaysians.

Interestingly, despite being poured with huge amount of work, recent study revealed that Malaysians are happy at work. Then the question remains: what keeps them motivated?

According to a survey conducted by JobStreet.com, Malaysia ranked fourth out of seven countries within the same region in Employee Job Happiness Index 2017. Scoring 4.65 on a 10-point scale, more than half (58 percent) of 10,143 Malaysian employees participated in the study reported that they are neutral to happy with their job.

The survey also showed that those working in the civil service, food and beverage, and medical industries are among the most contented employees in the country. Breaking down into specialization, the happiest workers turned out to specialize in sales (Telesales/Telemarketing), engineering (Electrical and Civil Engineering) and healthcare (Nurses, medical support and assistant).

Employees’ gender and civil status did not seem to influence the way Malaysians perceive job happiness. The survey found that having a good work location, good colleagues, and good company reputation are the top three key factors that affect their happiness at work.

On the other hand, respondents noted poor leadership, a lack of career development and training opportunities as the top three factors that will lead to job unhappiness.

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Regarding to the findings, Chook Yuh Yng, Country Manager of JobStreet.com Malaysia said that career development and training opportunities are among key areas whose growing significance cannot be neglected.

“The same trend was observed in the JobStreet.com Top 10 Companies 2017 report where Malaysian candidates placed high importance in these two closely related factors affecting their job prospects. Therefore, it is understandable that Malaysian employees would feel frustrated and unhappy at their workplace if they find opportunities in these two key areas lacking.”

When it comes to key factors of job unhappiness, one out of three Malaysian respondents (29 percent) expressed their thirst for rewards, in which salary increase is among main reason. Some other said receiving recognition from the company might also help improve job happiness (7 percent). Meanwhile, 27 percent Malaysians said that they would consider leaving their current jobs and seek for new opportunities in the pursuit of greater job happiness.

Ms Yng said, “We believe that employers with good leadership practices and attractive rewards can make a critical difference in motivating and driving job happiness amongst the employees in the region. To instill a greater sense of confidence in the leadership of a company, employers should practice transparency in communication, at the same time, schedule regular skills upgrading programmes to engage and retain top talent.

As Malaysian talent today are increasingly becoming clear on what they want, we hope companies can fully utilise market intelligence insights from our Employee Job Happiness Index 2017 to be a step ahead in talent retention for upcoming 2018,” she added.

Ranked first on the job happiness index was Indonesia (scoring 5.27), followed by Vietnam as the second (5.19) and Philippines (4.97) as the third. Meanwhile, Thailand (4.55), Hong Kong (4.45) and Singapore (4.31) took the fifth, sixth and seventh places respectively.

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