Yesterday I attended an ACCJ breakfast event, Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of the Gallup Organization. An interesting presentation, first No Powerpoint, which was refreshing. The topic was Employee Engagement, and we were told that according to Gallup Japan and Singapore have very low levels of employee engagement.

After the presentation I had lunch with a few friends and one of them pointed me to this article in Yahoo news.

Some excerpts:

“LONDON (AFP) – French workers are the world’s biggest whiners, according to a study published Monday which said the Irish complain least about their lot.Britons come second to their Gallic cousins in the moaning stakes, followed by Sweden, the United States and Australia. Japanese workers have the lowest morale, but don’t complain so much.

The lowest levels of whining were found in the Netherlands, Thailand and Ireland, according to the study by the FDS research group.

“It is interesting to note that after France, Britain and Sweden, the world’s biggest workplace whingers are Americans, despite their having by far the highest levels of income,” said FDS chief Charlotte Cornish.

In terms of worker morale, Dutch workers are the happiest, followed by their Thai and Irish counterparts. The lowest morale of all is found in Japan, followed by Germany, said the study.