By David Williams
29 November 2010
Job satisfaction among public sector workers rose in the last quarter – despite the increasing threat of redundancy and rises in reported rates of stress, sickness and bullying.
The quarterly Employee outlook survey, published today by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, says the figures show that staff are adopting a ‘fixed grin’ in the face of deteriorating working conditions.
The survey calculates job satisfaction by sector by subtracting the percentage of dissatisfied workers from the percentage who are satisfied. It gave a score of +42 for the public sector in autumn 2010 – up from +31 in summer.
Ben Willmott, senior public policy adviser, said the findings echoed similar figures in 2009, when job satisfaction across the economy leapt up during the worst months of the recession.
‘When faced with an uncertain outlook, employees place more value on simply having a job than they do during more benign economic times,’ he said. ‘They are also less likely to look enviously over the fences and think the grass may be greener with another employer.’
Meanwhile, one in four workers in the public sector believe they are likely to lose their jobs and half of all public sector employers are planning redundancies, compared with 10% of private sector firms.
Almost two-thirds of public sector workers – 63% – say stress has increased as a result of the downturn, up from 54% in the past quarter. Last summer, 39% said there were no increased instances of bullying, excessive pressure or people taking time off sick. Now the figure is less than a third, at 32% – suggesting that most workplaces are becoming more stressful places to work.
Willmott warned that there was a risk for the quality of public services, as employee engagement was in danger of plummeting. Only a fifth of public sector workers now trust their senior leaders, he said.
It is the first instalment of the survey since last month’s Comprehensive Spending Review.
