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Employee satisfactionEmployee satisfactionRegardless of industry and status within a company, morale was low. There were two exceptions. The first was a director of a young IT company (established less than five years) that had global reach but was not making a profit. This company had family-friendly policies and appreciated the long hours worked by its employees. The second was from a senior stores worker in the process industry who worked shorter hours than anyone else in the survey and also had a good work/life balance, but was not able to answer many of the general questions about the company. The overall impression was that everyone thought everyone else had a higher morale (for instance, marketing respondents cited sales, others working in sales cited service delivery, and so on). Interestingly one career professional who managed key customers believed that management levels and above had the highest morale, whereas of the respondents in the survey it was typically the higher levels that had the lowest morale. The closer to the top, the lower the morale (and incidentally, often the longest hours), especially those from the larger corporations. Morale and job satisfaction were not completely correlated, but the main factors affecting both were disillusionment about management, long hours and work/life balance. Almost all respondents worked more than 40 hours a week, although they were contracted for much shorter working weeks, and the reason most often cited was workload or culture, 'you have to be seen to be there' (survey respondent), although travel also played a large part. People were under stress but could not cut back the hours because of a backlog of work and low resource levels. This combined to make people feel that the company did not care. More personally, they felt that their management either had no time (because of their own high workload) or inclination to listen to them. Another problem was that people expected to be empowered in their jobs but in reality it tended not to happen. In the finance industry this was because of a risk-adverse culture and in the other industries owing to budget issues - the effect of different levels of authorization. Those in smaller, younger companies had the most autonomy, especially those with account responsibility. Lack of budgets was also often cited among marketers for low job satisfaction. They were unable to do their jobs properly and felt that their training (often to high levels) was wasted. Education helped raise morale, as it showed that the company cared enough to invest time and money in improving their employees, and gave those affected more insight into their company, making them feel more involved and raising their satisfaction levels. However, it lowered the morale of those who had been through high levels of training (such as an MA or MBA) with the company and then did not have the empowerment and decision-making capabilities relative to their higher academic qualifications. Salary was not a large factor in the low morale, as most of the respondents felt that their overall package was in line with others in their industry. It was noted by a minority that the hours worked actually made their remuneration per hour very low. 198
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