There seems to be a never-ending list of complaints that employees have about their jobs. However, author Patrick Lencioni has written a book entitled "Three Signs of a Miserable Job" and he discusses what those signs are and what it all means in an interview posted at Nationwidespeakers.com.
According to Lencioni, he decided to write this book after witnessing his own father trudging off to a job he hated day-after-day-after-day. It was then that he realized that, although people spend most of their lives at their respective jobs, most of them are also miserable.
He adds that a miserable job is not just a "bad" job, as that is subjective, but a job that "drains [workers] of the energy, their enthusiasm and their self-esteem."
What are the signs? The first is anonymity which comes when an employee gets the feeling that their manager does not care about them and tries to ignore them. The second is irrelevance which comes when a worker can't see why his or her job is important to the company or where they belong in the scheme of things. Finally, there is "immeasurement" which, according to Lencioni, "is the inability of employees to assess for themselves their contribution or success."
Lencioni states that most managers these days just don't even attempt to take an interest in their employee's lives. By taking the time to do this, managers can do a lot to alleviate those three signs and feelings, and do a lot to help employees feel like sticking around for the long haul.