Was just reading an article over on Business Week Online, about the importance of attracting talent and questioning why businesses continue to ignore the issue (another topic for another post). At the end of the article was a quick survey:
Q: What percentage of your workday do you spend doing things you like to do?
- 0 to 25%
- 25% to 50%
- 50% to 75%
- 75%
I clicked on 50% to 75% to be on the conservative side – admin and dull stuff sometimes takes a bigger chunk out of my day than I’d like it to, and occasionally I get dragged into doing something I’d prefer not to, but not sure it adds up to more than a quarter of my work time over the course of the year…
When I saw the results, well… I was shocked. I didn’t expect the numbers to be that bad. At the time, there were 807 votes with the following results:
- 0 to 25% = 43.2%
- 25% to 50% = 24.7%
- 50% to 75% = 19.3%
- > 75% = 12.8%
Nearly 70% of people spend more than half their working life doing stuff they don’t like doing???!!! That’s plain crazy! I guess some people feel the rewards they will get are worth the trade off, but I’m with Steve Jobs, live each and every day to the fullest. And companies need to think about these statistics. What impact could there be on productivity and outcomes if they made work more enjoyable…
Joining Dots 
Perhaps it's just that the people who spend more than half their working life on stuff they don't like are more likely to spend time filling in surveys at Business Week Online…