W: Welcome to Work Place. And in today’s program, we’re looking at the results of two recently published surveys, which both deal with the same topic - happiness at work. John, tell us about the first survey.

M: Well, this was done by a human resources consultancy, who interviewed more than 1,000 workers, and established a top ten of the factors, which make people happy at work. (1)The most important factor for the majority of the people interviewed was having friendly, supportive colleagues. In fact, 73% of people interviewed put their relationship with colleagues as the key factor contributing to happiness at work, which is a very high percentage. The second most important factor was having work that is enjoyable. The two least important factors were having one's achievements recognized, and rather surprisingly, earning a competitive salary.

W: So, we are not mainly motivated by money?

M: Apparently not.

W: Any other interesting information in the survey?

M: Yes. For example, 25% of the working people interviewed described themselves as 'very happy' at work. (2)However, 20% of employees described themselves as being unhappy.

W: That’s quite a lot of unhappy people at work every day.

M: It is, isn’t it? And there were several more interesting conclusions revealed by the survey. (3)First of all, small is beautiful: people definitely prefer working for smaller organizations or companies with less than 100 staff. We also find out that, generally speaking, women were happier in their work than men.

W: Yes, we are, aren’t we?

M: (4)And workers on part-time contracts, who only work 4 or 5 hours a day, are happier than those who work full-time. The researchers concluded that this is probably due to a better work-life balance.

W: Are bosses happier than their employees?

M: Yes, perhaps not surprisingly, the higher people go in a company, the happier they are. So senior managers enjoy their jobs more than people working under them.