There is a lot of data out there showing what people around the world are doing, but what the Gallup organization wanted to find out is what people are thinking. With this in mind, they created a unique World Poll and collected data from over 100 countries. Gallup is committed to conducting the World Poll for 100 years.
After the first round in 2007, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, Jim Clifton, wrote: "...we may have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact." He went on to call it "one of the single biggest discoveries Gallup has ever made."
What was Gallup's great discovery? Clifton summarized it this way: "What the whole world wants is a good job."
How interesting! This says something about people, throughout all cultures, whether Muslim, Christian, atheist, black, white, communist and capitalist. We share a common desire and hope. That desire and hope has to do with work!
No surprise. In the beginning, human beings were created in the likeness of a working God, and when we work, we exercise that God-given drive. But note Clifton's words carefully. He didn't say the world "wants to work." He said the whole world wants "a good job."
Here is where things get interesting. In the most recent World Poll findings, published in October, 2013, Gallup found only 13% of employed people across 142 countries are engaged in their work, that is, "emotionally invested in and focused on creating value for their organizations every day."
Furthermore, Gallup found that the number of employees who are "negative and potentially hostile to their organizations" outnumber engaged employees by nearly 2 to 1!
Remarkably, an astounding 63% of workers "lack motivation and are less likely to invest discretionary effort in organizational goals or outcomes."
Could this be because they don't feel their job is a "good" one?
What makes a particular job “good?” Is it the pay? The people we work with? The compatibility of our work with our particular gifts and talents? These are important factors, but it is possible to have excellent pay, great people to work with, a fitting job compatibility, and yet still lack that "something" which makes a particular job “good.”
What is that "something?"
We'll explore this next week.
