Work and UnemploymentSo what does make somewhere a good place to work?
This is a whole subject in itself. Roughly speaking, a good
workplace needs to offer:
- good work organization, including
clear goals for the work
adequate autonomy in doing it
support and appreciation for doing it
adequate skill and time to do it
sufficient variety of work
safety at work- good work/life balance, including
reasonable hours of work
flexibility for family objectives- good pay, promotion prospects, and job security
There have been countless studies of job satisfaction that
lie behind this.^22 But the acid test is whether the workplace
makes people contented with their life as a whole. Here
there have been few studies of the effect of the workplace on
overall life- satisfaction.
To study this, a good source is the European Social Sur-
vey (2004 and 2010), which asked detailed questions about
the different dimensions of workplace experience. Table
4.8 studies employed people and shows the regression of
life- satisfaction (0– 10) on a set of questions that cover most
of the standard characteristics of good practice that were
listed earlier. Interestingly all the characteristics show up
with fairly similar sizes of effect, and the effects are big.^23
Questions relating to work- life balance are particularly
strong predictors of life- satisfaction across these European