Our question in March: A fun workplace - is that utopia?

Workers aged 17-29 rate interesting tasks, nice colleagues and a good boss the most important factors at work. This is the result of a survey, “The young and leadership”, published late August by the Finnish Economic Information Office. Least important factors were high salary, flexible work hours and the ability to work from a distance as well as freedom to decide about the content of one’s job. Those behind the survey emphasize that a good boss is much more important than salary to these young people.

This reminds me of another survey with the same target group I read about last Winter sometime. This survey showed that an alarming number of young people felt the pressure at work to be so high, that they did not believe they would be capable to work any longer after two year. The papers have also written a lot lately about an increase in sick leave and disability pension due to psychological reasons. Are the expectations of young people entering the work life too high? Should you have fun at work, a bit like when you were studying? Have companies themselves caused this expectation gap by declaring for years that “people are our most valuable assets”, without being able to realize this promise due to their own action or meager management?

Is it then wrong to expect it to be fun at work? No, but there are few jobs where you can work with nice people and perform tasks you find motivating all day long. Will this not make the manager’s role more central, if we are to keep the “generation Y” active in the work life and at the same time increase productivity to get the economy back on track?