Happy in their job

Barcelona, May 5th 2011. Despite the economic downturn which has been with us for over 3 years now, 82% of managers who work in Catalonia state that they are satisfied with their job post, nine points higher than employees, with a 73% satisfaction rate. This is one of the main conclusions of the survey ‘Manager satisfaction and commitment in Catalonia’ carried out by EADA Business School. Aline Masuda, EADA professor and author of the report argues that in a deep crisis scenario such as the one we are currently going through it is “normal for them to feel satisfied by the mere fact that they have held onto their job, especially if they work in companies which have made considerable redundancies”.

As far as commitment is concerned, 26% of those surveyed often think about leaving their job whereas 32% want to look for a new job in the next 12 months, which indicates that, even though the majority of managers are satisfied, a considerable percentage feels that they are not valued as they should be both economically and professionally. In this respect it is worth pointing out that 37% of the survey respondents think that they are unlikely to be promoted inside their current company as opposed to 36% who state the opposite.

Another aspect that the report focuses on is the concept of flexibility, where a lot still needs to be done in Catalan and Spanish companies. 77% of the managers interviewed stated that they had autonomy in this respect whereas in 71% of cases companies did not allow half days or their employees to work from home (63%). Satisfaction, motivation and commitment were higher for managers who worked on a telework basis than it was for their peers in other companies.

The current economic scenario where managers are asked to pitch in by taking on greater responsibilities has meant that managers in Catalonia  work 48 hours a week on average, which boils down to one ‘unpaid’ work day a week.