In the recent Employee Job Happiness Index 2017 survey by JobStreet.com, Malaysia ranked fourth out of seven countries within the same region for employees who were happy at their workplace.
They scored 4.65 on a 10-point scale.
The survey results showed that employees working in the civil service, food and beverage, and medical industries were the happiest.
Breaking down into specialisation, the happiest employees were those in sales (telesales/telemarketing), engineering (electrical and civil engineering) and healthcare (nurses, medical support and assistants).
In contrast, poor leadership, a lack of career development and training opportunities were flagged by respondents as the top three factors contributing to job unhappiness.
“We see that ‘career development’ and ‘training opportunities’ are key areas whose growing importance cannot be neglected.
“The same trend was observed in the JobStreet.com Top 10 Companies 2017 report where Malaysian candidates placed high importance in these two closely related factors affecting their job prospects.
“Therefore, it is understandable that Malaysian employees would feel frustrated and unhappy at their workplace if they find opportunities in these two key areas lacking,” said JobStreet.com Malaysia country manager Chook Yuh Yng.
With 10,143 Malaysian employees surveyed, more than half of the respondents (58%) reported that they were neutral to happy with their job.
Market intelligence garnered from the survey indicated that gender and civil status of employees did not cause them to perceive happiness differently.
On the key factors causing unhappiness at work, one out of three Malaysian respondents (29%) expressed their thirst for rewards, especially salary increase.
Some (7%) said receiving recognition from the company may also help to increase job happiness.
Moreover, 27% of Malaysian employees said that they would consider leaving their current jobs and opt for new opportunities in pursuit of greater job happiness.
“We believe that employers with good leadership practices and attractive rewards can make a critical difference in motivating and driving job happiness among the employees in the region.
“To instill a greater sense of confidence in the leadership of a company, employers should practice transparency in communication, at the same time, schedule regular skills upgrading programmes to engage and retain top talent.
“As Malaysian talent today are increasingly becoming clear on what they want, we hope companies can fully utilise market intelligence insights from our Employee Job Happiness Index 2017 to be a step ahead in talent retention in 2018,” said Chook.
A total of 35,513 people were surveyed from seven countries, namely Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, across 20 industries, including fresh graduates and those in top management positions.
The respondents were asked to rate their job satisfaction in 2017 with a 10-point scale for the Job Happiness Index, where 5 was considered neutral.