A study published in Forbes says that only 19 percent of Americans enjoy their jobs. Obviously, this is bad news.
Having lived in the states for six years I know how important work is to Americans. Not only do they spend more time at work than Europeans do, they also define themselves in terms of their work to a greater extent than we do.
The good news is that people working in Swedish led companies enjoy their jobs a lot better. That is true for each of the 91 nations that we have data for in our analysis database of approximately a million responses from the last three years. 43 percent of 11 500 Americans in our database respond enthusiastically to the question “Do you enjoy your work?” and 83 percent respond either enthusiastically or merely positively to that question.
19 percent compared to either 43 or 83 percent. The difference is huge and needs some explaining:
Brilliant does employee surveys in 91 countries, all based from Stockholm Sweden. Focusing on Swedish and Scandinavian companies means Brilliant has come to be a specialist in multinationals, of which Scandinavia has a disproportionately many.
Something we have noticed is that Scandinavian managers are appreciated by just about every nationality around the globe. Chinese, French and Americans all enjoy working for Scandinavian managers.
This may have something to do with the egalitarian nature of all Scandinavian countries. A Scandinavian manager is a manager of equals. The classic cross culture study “Culture’s Consequences” by Geert Hofstede described Sweden and Scandinavia as the most egalitarian nations in the world some 30 years ago. The results from World Values Survey shows that this remains. The World Bank publishes results “the Gini Coefficient” that shows that this applies to financial results as well.
Seeing yourself as a manager of equals you probably have an easier time seeing and acknowledging the positive qualities and contributions of your subordinates. That is a good starting place for meritocracy both among people and ideas.
In the long run, that is good for business.