The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), led by its Collaboration for Healthier Lives Coalition of Action (CHL), and Engaging Business, recently conducted a survey of consumer goods professionals as part of the CGF’s Sustainable Retail Summit that was held 15th-16th October 2020. The survey, developed by Engaging Business, was taken by 202 employees from numerous countries situated across the globe. The overall Workplace Happiness score accumulated to 72.21%, indicating a very strong response from these employees. The complete survey results and analysis can be downloaded from the CGF’s Global Learning Mechanism, the one-stop platform for knowledge and best-practices on empowering consumers and employees to live healthier lives.

Top Marks for Job Satisfaction, But Mental Health Has Taken a Hit

Across the survey, job satisfaction topped the group of topics covered by the Six Steps to Workplace Happiness Framework and was driven by numerous high scoring questions, the highest of which was “I have a good relationship with my line manager”, scoring 79.41%. This was the highest scoring question within the survey. Furthermore, employees feel they are treated with respect (78.47%), they enjoy their job (76.39%) and employees feel that people from all backgrounds are treated fairly at their companies (78.12%).

Further improvement can still be made within Job satisfaction, as employees scored 65.45% when asked if they are being developed. This issue was particularly bad for those employees working in Retail (54.29%), as well as those in Not-for-profit, who scored 59.68%. This question in fact was third lowest scoring question for employees working in Retail and FMCGs, however, FMCG employees still scored 66.85% which truly illustrates how well they performed within the survey.

engaging-business-survey-results-highlightsv2However, driven by the impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns that took place globally, workplace wellbeing took the biggest hit, providing the lowest scores overall, with questions like, “Is there someone in your organisation that you can talk to about mental health?” scoring only 58% and “I rarely feel anxious or depressed about work” scoring 60%.

Overall, no step performed poorly. The complete breakdown is available in the full report, but some highlights from specific questions, filtered by whether respondents work in retail, FMCG/CPG or non-profit, can be seen in the graphic.   –>

Survey Methodology – Six Steps to Workplace Happiness

If employee happiness is the objective, it is possible to create a sense of ownership and responsibility around a business in a range of ways. Individuals who feel they have more power over their working life, well-being and environment will take more responsibility for the success of their employer. The endgame should be a more engaged society that promotes greater happiness, collective endeavor and a fairer sharing of success.

The Six Steps to Workplace Happiness is a framework that encompasses the six key drivers of employee engagement, happiness and wellbeing: Reward and Recognition, Information Sharing, Empowerment, Well-being, Instilling Pride and Job Satisfaction.

Based on the answers of the 202 individual survey respondents, people were informed which Six Steps to Workplace Happiness category they sit within, along with advice on how to improve their workplace wellbeing.

About Engaging Business

With over 30 years in the John Lewis Partnership as Deputy Chairman and a decade as MD of Waitrose, Mark Price created Engaging Business to help organisations improve their workplace happiness and employee engagement to drive greater commercial performance. To learn more, visit: https://engaging.business/

About Employee Wellbeing at the CGF

As part of the umbrella strategy of Collaboration for Healthier Lives, we have a global working group committed to employee wellbeing. It is focused on enabling a culture of health and wellbeing through health and wellbeing programmes for our people, looking into ways to help drive the industry forward in a collective effort to help employees around the world pursue healthier lifestyle choices and diets. The work with Engaging Business allows us to have a pulse on the industry’s wellbeing and will be helpful for our ambition to create a wellbeing reference. Further information and case studies on employee health and wellness can be found on the Global Learning Mechanism.