‘Happiest workers in PH’ tag may attract investors to Cebu

Yolanda Buyco, regional marketing operations head for Seek Asia Jobstreet, discusses the results of their employees’ happiness study at the firm’s office in Cebu City.
(CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)

More investments are seen to pour into an area when its employees are happy, given that happiness in the workplace may be linked to productivity.

Fortunately for Cebu, its employees emerged as the “happiest” in the whole country, according to a report by JobStreet.com.

“We are hoping this situation will continue. If we are happy, we are productive. When we are productive, more companies will come to us to invest,” said Yolanda Buyco, regional marketing operations manager of SEEK Asia, JobStreet’s mother company, in a press conference on Tuesday.

Happiness index report

According to JobStreet.com’s 2016 Job Happiness Index Report released on Tuesday, the average job satisfaction rating among Cebu’s 518 respondents is 6.38 on a 10-point scale.

Cebu surpassed the national average rating of 6.25 and ranked higher than other labor-rich areas such as CALABARZON (6.26), Metro Manila (6.14), and Negros Island Region (6.09).

Cebu’s job happiness index is also higher than the national average of 73, with 76 out of 100 Cebuano employees claiming to be at least neutral to extremely happy with their jobs.

Two months ago, JobStreet announced that the Philippines ranked highest among seven Asian countries surveyed, the rest being Indonesia (6.16), Thailand (5.74), Hongkong (5.54), Vietnam (5.48), Malaysia (5.22), and Singapore (5.09).

Online survey

Buyco said they conducted an online survey from June to July this year, asking 12,796 respondents all over the Philippines whether they are happy with their jobs and if they think their situation will change in the next six months.

She said that since not all companies could conduct engagements with employees, the report would be a way to educate business owners about the labor market and the forces that would drive happiness.

Factors

Angelo Jayno, JobStreet sales supervisor, further explained that Cebuanos who took the survey placed a high premium on good relationships with colleagues, convenient work location, and conducive work schedule when asked which factors caused job happiness.

Meanwhile, he said the top factors that make employees unsatisfied with their jobs are poor salary, lack of benefits, and an uninspiring management and leadership team.

Jayno added that 31 percent of Cebuano respondents said a salary increase would make them happier.

On the other hand, 14 percent would rather resign and take advantage of better opportunities while 8 percent said getting further training and development opportunities would make them happier at work.

Tenure

When it comes to tenure, Cebuano employees who have stayed in their jobs for six months to less than one year claimed to be the happiest, followed by those with three to less than five years’ stay in their present jobs.

This is also reflected in the findings based on position level, with Cebuano fresh graduates averaging highest at 6.49 and an average of 6.41 among those in the supervisory level as second.

Province gov’t workers

Jayno said the province’s government workers are the happiest at 7.57, followed by employees in the retail and banking industries with 7.13 and 6.69, respectively.

Employees specializing in sciences, building and construction, and marketing are the happiest in Cebu, in contrast to education, arts and media, and accounting specialists who take the bottom three averages based on specialization.

This year, JobStreet came out with its third national job happiness index report, second regionally, and the first for Cebu.