Happiness@Work Index: How Satisfied Do Canadians Feel In Their Workplace?

Nearly half of Canadian workers feel satisfied with their current working life, with happiness climbing in most demographics, a new report has found.

The National Work Happiness Score, in relation to ADP Canada’s Happiness@Work Index for May, represented an increase of 0.1 points from April, reaching 6.7 out of 10.

The May Index means roughly 44% of Canadians are satisfied with their current role and responsibilities, ADP said. Increases were also reported in the categories of career advancement options, recognition and support, and compensation and benefits.

ADP Canada’s vice-president of marketing, Haslam, called the latest results “very good news” for the workplace, BNNBloomberg.ca reported.

It’s important that Canadian workers have healthy relationships in their workplace, and Canadian employers try to get the best out of their team by actually focusing on their happiness, she added.

While work happiness remained the same or increased in every geographic location, Alberta in Western Canada saw a drop of 0.4 points, reaching 6.5.

Haslam said she can speculate as to what might have caused the slide, despite the report not examining factors behind the happiness levels.

She highlighted the fact that “what it is that’s impacting our personal life … certainly does bleed into the workplace,” adding things like the fires in Alberta could be behind the decline in scores.

When age demographics is concerned, while work happiness among Canadians aged 56 to 75 years fell 0.1 points, the other demographics either saw slight increases or remained the same.

Haslam is optimistic about the coming months as well and hopes for the work happiness score to continue to climb through the summer.

She underscored the need to find the factor that’s really helping the scores climb, revealing her interest in both the regional and generational differences found on the index.

The Happiness@Work Index is measured monthly through a survey run in the first week of each month for consistency purposes. Over 1,200 randomly selected Canadian workers (including both employees and self-employed individuals) rate workplace factors on a scale of 1 to ten.