Landmark Gallup Survey Asks: Who is Happiest With Their Jobs?

My mother always says that things happen in three’s, and she’s usually right.

Earlier this month one of my close colleagues dropped dead of a heart attack. Two days later, my CEO went into the hospital with a serious heart condition. Later that same day, another retired executive from my company went into the hospital with a stroke. Then everything was quiet again.

Thankfully, both my CEO and the retired exec are now recovering nicely. But the fact that three major health issues landed on three principal players in my company within three days spooked me a little bit. Maybe it is just a matter of looking for patterns that my mother says are supposed to be there, but this trio of events made me wonder if there really is something to those old wives tales.

Oddly enough, I found another grouping of three happening this month with my Blog around the triple-subject of work, happiness and God’s purpose.

One. Last week I said that happiness was turning out to be a hot topic, and I discussed the question of how happiness was supposed to be connected to our jobs.  Two. The week prior, I referenced a survey by US Catholic magazine which examined the relationship between people’s jobs and their sense of God’s purpose for their lives. Both of these posts generated some thought-provoking comments. You guys are so smart.

Three!  Then, sure enough, last week I came across the inevitable third straggler in my work-happiness-purpose trilogy. Gallup, the mega-research organization, released a comprehensive, landmark survey of 100,826 working adults exploring the question of how occupation affects well-being. 

Not that it’s a contest, but guess which occupation won? The results reveal that business owners outrank 10 other occupational groups in overall well-being. The sense of well-being was measured based on six criteria of contentment, such as emotional and physical health, job satisfaction, and self-reports of overall life quality. Professionals such as doctors and lawyers came in second, and executives and managers (such as Yours Truly) ranked third. At the bottom of the ranking were manufacturing workers. (What, they don’t find inherent meaning in their work? I thought God’s purpose could be found in every job? What gives?)

Of course I immediately took note of the fact that the top three ranking professions are also the highest paid. So, yes, I was thinking that, despite our earnest Christian efforts towards modesty in trying to downplay financial ambitions, it does appear that making money does have something to do with well-being in career choice. (Hey people, this is not just my opinion anymore, this is freakin’ Gallup!). However,  my theory was busted by the fourth-ranked group, the farm-workers, who are the lowest-earners and most overworked of the whole bunch. Well, okay. I guess there is some merit to just plain liking what you do.

The business owners’ high-ranking sense of happiness may have something to do with their ability to control their own fate, for better or worse. Sue Shellenbarger of the Wall Street Journal’s weekly “Work and Family” column sums it up nicely: “The survey suggests that seeking out enjoyable work and finding a way to do it on your own terms, with some control over process and the outcome, is likely for most people to fuel satisfaction and contentment.”

Although the Gallup poll did not ask the participants outright questions concerning their spiritual life, they were asked to respond to these questions in measuring job satisfaction: (1) Do they get to use their strengths at work? (2) Does their supervisor treat them more like a boss, or a partner? And (3) Does their supervisor create an environment that is open and trusting?

Hmmm. To me, these all sound like spiritual issues: (1) Finding and utilizing your God-given strengths, (2) Treating people with respect and dignity, and (3) Creating an open and trusting atmosphere of, well, love.

Funny. Doesn’t the bible talk about the same thing?