Rabbi Set To Open D.C.'s Second Medical Marijuana Dispensary
Happy Memorial Day! 1 In 4 U.S. Workers Get No Vacation, Report Finds
Survey Says: Nearly Half of Employees Think About Quitting
Citing concerns over their salaries, workloads and bosses, 21 percent of employees have applied for a new job in the past six months, according to new research.
Posted 3/ 9 11 at 3:30 PM | Business Trends, Money, Management, Leadership, Starting a Business
Text Size:
A A A
Keeping employees happy, staying informed about key business issues and not screwing up may sound like fairly simple tasks, but apparently more small-business owners than you'd think are struggling with these issues. Here's a closer look at some of the latest small-business surveys.I Can't Get No Satisfaction
On the heels of Employee Appreciation Day on March 4, new research shows that many employees have more than a few complaints about their jobs. According to a survey from MarketTools, a leading feedback-management and market-research firm, most employees don't feel very appreciated. In fact, nearly 50 percent have thought about quitting and 21 percent have applied for another job in the past six months.
To no one's surprise, the top reason employees are unhappy is that they're not making enough money -- 47 percent are unhappy with their salaries, according to the survey. Other leading causes of dissatisfaction:
- Workload (24 percent)
- Lack of opportunities for advancement (21 percent)
- Employee's manager or supervisor (21 percent)
Business owners may not even know their staffs are unhappy -- 72 percent of the businesses surveyed don't formally seek employee feedback (or the staff is unaware that a formal program exists).
If you're a boss who doesn't care if your employees leave, since you think everyone is replaceable -- think again. According to MarketTools vice president Justin Schuster, there's a strong correlation between customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction. "Ultimately," he says, "satisfied, engaged employees provide a better customer experience that leads to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty."
Oops, I Did It Again
Everyone makes mistakes. But startup entrepreneurs seem to make more than their fair share. According to a new survey by insurance company Hiscox, the most common gaffes committed by people starting businesses are:
- Underestimating monthly expenses (32 percent)
- Hiring the wrong people (20 percent)
- Not knowing how to market and sell their product (18 percent)
- Under financing (18 percent)
The Hiscox USA Small Business Survey also asked small-business owners what their "knowledge gaps" were during the startup phase. The top topics entrepreneurs admitted they didn't fully understand were the impact of taxes (33 percent), financing and credit (26 percent), and hiring and firing (24 percent).
This just underscores the fact that as much as you think you know, there's always something new to learn.
Help, I Need Somebody
So, if you start out that clueless, as the survey above indicates, where then do you turn for advice? According to the Sage Business Index survey, 56 percent of entrepreneurs seek help from their accountants, 48 percent to business associations and 40 percent to colleagues. Where aren't they seeking help? Banks (used by only 16 percent) and government sources (used by a mere 7 percent). In fact, the Internet ranked higher than both of those, with 30 percent saying they search the Web to learn what they want to know.
That doesn't mean entrepreneurs have no interest in government help. The majority (53 percent) say the government could do more to provide support and advice to startup business owners. I'm always surprised by how many people don't know about two great (and free!) sources of help from the government: SCORE and Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs).
Rieva Lesonsky is CEO of GrowBiz Media, a content and consulting company that helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. Follow Rieva at Twitter.com/Rieva and visit SmallBizDaily.com to sign up for her free TrendCast reports.
Getty Images
- 'Marriage Penalty' Could Make Costly Return - CNNMoney
- Oil Rises on Optimism for Cliff Deal - FOXBusiness
- Dow 2012: The Studs and Duds - InvestorPlace
- Turning the Corner: Why 2012 Wasn't as Bad as You Think - The Motley Fool
- World’s Longest High-Speed Rail Line Unveiled In China - IBTimes
- FORGET THE DEFICIT: Here's The Real Reason Liberals Want To Hike Taxes On The Rich - Business Insider
- CEOs to Fire in 2013 - 24/7 Wall St.
- DailyFinance Market Minute - DailyFinance
Comments (Page 1 of 3)
A lot of workers are tired of working when those who don't are rewarded. We have generations of people who have never worked and entire families that don't know what it is to hold a job, but the American worker is supposed to support them and the other 50% who pay no taxes. But, when a taxpaying worker loses his job, he gets far less help than the folks who have been on the dole all their lives. The American worker is tired of working two jobs or more to support those who can't find or hold one.
Draycus, quite the contrary. Many of us are busting our biscuits trying to make a living, while there are deadbeats out there who couldn't spell "work" if you gave them the W, O, and R. It goes back to the "unappreciated" part. It's boils down to "why bother?"
jgesselberty, You just don't get it. You are not working to take care of those not working. This article has nothing to do with your ridiculous assertion. Dumb, just dumb.
I want to be a sidewalk organizer, sell socialist policy, get voted into office and play basset ball and golf all day... AND draw 96 weeks of unemployment after I am terminated.
I.m with you but I will add that the ones I have emp,oyed the longest seem to be the ones who expect others to cover their slack!
Not hard to figure out whose side the writer and sponsers are on. The American worker of today pales in comparison to the worker of the 50's and 60's. Many would tell you that they get paid more than they deserve. I am self-employed so I really don't have a dog in this fight, but I do know who pays the bills and who does the least amount of work they can for what they get paid. Things have changed for the American worker ... mainly ... there is no such thing as job security anymore. But the American worker has changed also. They want more than they need, they cannot live within their means, and a work ethic is unknown to them. Americans are a lowly bunch compared to the generations that preceeded us. It really stinks to high $#!T and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Me thinks you need to lay off the fire water.
No employees are used like cheep tools and that is why employers get poor workers who would rather be any place but work.
We invested, we had our 401, until all went down hill. Forced into retirement, we had no time to recoup our 401 losses. Put your money in the mattress and don't do anything all your life and you will have retirement money. Or don't do anything all your life and invest and reinvest and you will leave your kids a lot of money. It GREED that has destroyed the workers, they watch a lot of people doing very little and gettting paid BIG BUCKS. GREED
yeah,right!!
AMEN!!!!!!!
PERHAPS if government would stop spending what we do make we could at least feel like we are getting a raise and making more money. Lets get Obama out of office he is spending more in NEW programs than any other President in history. Oh, and his lies about not believing in war and bringing ALL of our troops home our more than disappointing. He's about to put us in a war with Libya. When if he would JUST let us DRILL our OWN oil we wouldn't be in any wars? I mean someone has to drill it so why not us?
I'm sorry they missed out on a big reason for a new job....benefits. I would love to have Affordable healthcare...and not government healthcare I mean real BC BS healthcare at affordable rates....being a contractor my family pay $1500/month for a plan that has a deductible of $3K before they EVEN start covering expenses...highway robbery.....
I agree. My health insurance premiums doubled, my co pays doubled, the deductable doubled, I did not get a cost of living raise for the last four years. Under the new Obama health care I am paying more and getting less. I am thinking that my generation is supposed to pay for everything.
As a small business owner good help is hard to find. And no matter what the amount of money is people are just to distracted. We have a ban on texting which is the biggest problem but so is facebook and every other kind of task. Nobody wants to put the nose to the grindstone and produce anymore. We have to hire 2 people at minimum wage to fill the shoes of 1 competent worker. I cannot be alone here. Nobody has work ethic and the ones who half do are weirdos who don't have a TV in their homes or some off the wall crap. College kids applying for entry level work that we are not about to waste precious hours on training them until they find something better. It is an epedimic. At the end of the day if you can't hang your fired bottom line. And all these stupid schools promising these kids work. One kid came in with a degree in digital arts yet didn't know what a Fstop or ISO was on a camera. And an even worse problem are the number of false resume's. Do a little digging next time its a trip. One kid claimed he had a degree in mass media when we contacted the school, he was only recently approved for the school but couldn't get financial aid so he he was still pending.
Reading your posts, the one mentioning the 50's & 60's era is completely right. That was the best years for American blue collar workers (the former majority middle class of this nation) bar none. We were at crux of our industrialization & manufacturing and companies were ran differently then whereas employees were awarded for their contributions & efforts and families ALL lived well, and it was not like today whereas the executives now want all the profits and little to their employees and even play "illegal" games with their public traded stock to manipulate it for their personal greed while destroying their very own corp market caps in the process; but that was before this current techno-age where every electronic gadget under the sun weekly sees people running out taking out loans and borrowing to buy the next electronic gizmo they do not really need to live and survive by in this world.
I am in my 3rd small business venture over the last 30 years, always earned what I got and raised 4 sons in that time. NOBODY gave me anything in this world and I did not have a "wonderful famiiy" structure either growing up but worked hard and persevered at all obstacles in my way. I am a child of the 60's as well and it disgusts me to see this nation become what it has today!
This was warned of happening many years ago, yet popular opinion and media hype created a new environment whereas it was fashionable to now want for anything irregardless of one's financial ability, instead of saving & investing over time to own something free & clear and take care of that. We use and thrown out everything today and have no commitment to longevity from relationships to products or properties. The USA continues to have so much waste from consumers to the US Government and it is out of control and damaging what is left to this whole country. Never in my lifetime have I seen so much regulations & controls & legislation from Fed to State levels that hampers private small business to where today, I have to even go without insurance because I am forced to cut financial waste everywhere just to keep my business operating and serving my loyal customer base, and this is sick! I work on average 80 hours every week, I pay SH!!Tload of taxes (especially State from all products my business purchases),I have no pension supplied to me, I have no medical insurance now, I do not expect social security when I reach that age either; yet I go on daily providing my business to my customers as I always have and in the hard work ethic and integrity I was taught and we used to have across this nation. Many customers I have are already well retired and hire me because I still provide the type of business service they remembered was prevalent in this nation years ago and stand by my word and products, and that has been my niche' in this economic climate we have today.
I finally gave up hiring younger people, and just work longer hours weekly, because the last 2 "20 something's" who begged for a job and wanted to learn and apprentice to build useable skills ran away after seeing what hard work was about and didn't like getting dirty, getting a few week's paychecks, and this is a song I hear from many other baby boomer-aged employers like myself- just a lost generation today of younger, lazy people who were taught to beg for something they wanted or get others to give them something, blame others for their misgivings, and only rely on a computer to make a living, and that is sad, as it took the full human element out of everything in oour daily lives from figuring things out to creating results by one's ability- and only made the likes of a Bill Gates immensely wealthy in the process, while dumbing down a nation and 2 generations of people today.
We now have no middle class left like we used to have, which was the majority of the US workforce for generations. These blue collar regular people (neighbors & friends) all lived and existed without worrying who made what money or how much as we all were of the same cut, and interacted with each other daily and just lived the best we could each day and valued all the efforts we would put into those days- but that is all gone sadly today. Inflation was a fraction of what it now is today and we had lower taxes and ALL of us spent our monies in our local communities and EVERYONE thrived from the small businesses to the families who worked hard then. I grew up on the Lake Erie bayfront and like many other "rust belt" citizens knew what BIG industry was about and what high paying jobs were about and now all of the has gone to Asia & Mexico. Today, we are living in a new paradigm of higher costs & inflation yet stagnant wages and low US dollar purchasing power. We cannot buy like we used to 20-30 years or more ago; yet still, Is ee the banking community and others putting otu tricky ads to lure in people in tricky loans (who really cannot afford them today)just to move cars or houses or expesnive TV sets, etc and it only is hurting the consumer worse and the escalating interest rates are crippling this nation and the banks know damn well many will not be able to dig out of such accumulating high interest debts- yet we repeat history and still do not learn any lessons...
I am with you here as I am also a business owner and child of the 60's era; and there definitley is a MAJOR problem with today's young workforce who only want artificial electronic produced entertainment, instead of applying themselves and working hard at creating something of worthiness and value for a customer... And all this texting crap is useless and it is so amazing to see common sense all lost today, and that we have to have MORE federal laws on the books to outlaw people from texting while driving a motor vehicle as people are too ignorant to realize you cannot text and drive defensively on a highway at the same time, yet they do, and post death risk to us safe drivers out there daily.
Freedom is Hell............too much Anxiety to be Happy in a Free Country
such as USA ! If you don't like Job then get new one ! This is nice
compared to France !
Yup, if only I could win the Lottery lol.
www.anon-tools.es.tc
Big corporations are the worst. Wages haven't gone up since the 80's, but everything else has, so of course nobody is happy with their wages. However, the ones that are getting paid too much are Managers. Most of them are selfish, arrogant people with no idea of what they are Managing. For example, Walmart trains their managers to be mean, cold, back stabbing and uncaring.
I believe that if business treated their employees better, wages would still be an issue, but not as much of an issue. People are tired of being treated like crap.