“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” – Rumi

A review of the current research on the current state of worker satisfaction in the United States indicates that the answer to the question of “Are workers satisfied with their job?” is a resounding, “Hard to tell.”

Consider these findings:

• Employee satisfaction plummeted for the third straight quarter in the last months of 2023, reaching a four-year low, according to new data.
• U.S. workers are less satisfied with nearly every aspect of their jobs than they were a year ago, a survey finds.
• Overall, job satisfaction among the surveyed workers rose six percentage points over the past decade.
• About half of workers are highly satisfied with their job overall, but views of specific aspects of their job vary considerably.

Which is it? Do we love or hate our jobs? Is there a marked difference in how people feel about their work today compared to past years? Haven’t Americans always had a love/hate relationship with work and, more importantly, what is a poor manager/leader to do with such a moving target as worker satisfaction?

As an employee assistance professional (EAP), who deals daily with both how people feel about their jobs and how they act, or in some cases act out, I hear far more stories about the negative sides of working for a living than the positives.

It appears that one way companies, from large corporations to mom-and-pop shops, have dealt with the satisfaction conundrum is to drop “satisfaction” and switch to measuring “employee engagement.”

Defined by Gallup as “the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace,” engagement is thought to help “measure and manage employees’ perspectives on the crucial elements of your workplace environment.” If the word “enthusiasm” jumps out of the above sentence, it should. In my EAP work, I’ve met countless people who showed the bare minimum of enthusiasm for their work but were dedicated, hard workers.

Routinely, I have leaders of all types reach out to me in an effort to get the most out of their employees, while at the same time trying to “make them happy.” When we strip away the variations on the theme of how people approach their work, it seems to come back to this very basic need for happiness. Yet, even here we run headlong into the chicken and egg of “A happy worker is a productive worker” to Zig Ziglar’s comment, “A productive employee who is kept busy working at his or her job is far more likely to be happy at that job and less likely to look for employment elsewhere.”

No wonder the leaders I speak with often lament taking the executive chair and long for the days when their primary concern was their own happiness.

My experience in the EAP world and as a psychotherapist with 40 years of experience has taught me that human happiness is ephemeral at best and at worst akin to the Bigfoot—something many believe in, but few have seen.

Given this, it would be easy to throw up our hands and go back to the days of “Work is where you get a paycheck; get your happiness somewhere else.” The fact that this mindset led to dangerous working conditions, worker exploitation, and, in some cases, open revolt, suggests that we are better off striking a balance between work as labor—literally meaning “tribulation and suffering”—to work as a vocation—literally meaning “a calling.”

As a result of my mental health background and professional experience, I’ve always believed that I was the best guardian of my happiness both at work and at home. I never felt comfortable giving over to complete strangers, whose primary responsibility is to make money, not joy, something so precious as how I feel about myself and what I do for a living.

This doesn’t mean that the movement toward self-enrichment through employment is at odds with corporate intention—much of my current work as a consultant and professional coach is to help leaders find ways to strike this balance to hold on to good workers.

Since managers also struggle with their own satisfaction at work, often even more than those they supervise, I use a list of tips and tools that support both those who lead and those who follow:

1. Be willing to leave your comfort zone: Many people suffer at work due to staying in modes that no longer support their well-being.
2. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes: Perfection hinders growth and saps the joy out of accomplishments.
3. Don’t indulge in self-limiting thoughts: Beating oneself up is only internalizing the dysfunctional boss.
4. Spend time on self-development: Improving areas beyond one’s current work title not only strengthens one’s self-worth but can also turn into a new career path.
5. Train yourself to finish what you start: Leaving too many loose ends contributes to feelings of exhaustion and hopelessness.
6. Live fully in the present moment: Work schedules have a way of warping one’s sense of time creating unnecessary tension. There is a reason they’re called deadlines; live for the now.
7. Commit yourself to joy: Rather than hoping your work will bring you happiness, make its discovery your primary goal and live the adventure of its search.

Since not everyone will be afforded the opportunity to have jobs that are satisfying, fulfilling, and personally rewarding, it makes sense to look inside ourselves for those experiences and bring them into whatever it is we do to provide for our basic needs. In this way, when the time comes to set aside work and enjoy our retirement, we won’t wake to the startling revelation that we left it all at the office.