King said middle managers tended to be the most unhappy as they suffered “sandwich stress” – pressure from above and from below.
Being able to see a tangible outcome at the end of a hard day’s slog was also a recipe for happiness,King said,while fun perks such as bean bags and ping pong tables could fall victim to hedonic habituation.
“All those things initially give you this sense like,oh wow,this is cool,but it just becomes normal,” she said.
“What really does make people feel happy is a clear idea of organisational justice,are resources distributed fairly,and people want to know,is there a clear path to being promoted?”
King said people also wanted clear job descriptions.
“Stress comes from confusion – where the lines between people’s jobs become murky,that causes conflict,” she said.
“It’s not necessarily lack of money or long hours that make people unhappy – if people love it,or find passion,they don’t actually notice the long hours because it’s not a drag to work long hours.”
King,with others,conducted a research project involving 100 Australian CEOs from industries including government,defence,rail,banking and health that found sleep-deprived bosses were associated with lower psychological safety ratings.
Research conducted by Google on 180 teams found psychological safety – an environment where people feel safe to take risks,or speak up with ideas,questions or concerns without being judged – was the most important predictor of high-performing teams.
King said if employees did not feel safe at work,they were being paid “full time to work part time”.
“When people don’t feel safe,they can’t help but engage in protective,retractive,overthinking,forecasting and hypervigilance,” she said.
“Half of their mental real estate is going towards politicking and arse covering,and not on the job.”
The DPC deals with the “bigger picture” aspects of government – supporting and advising the Premier and cabinet so the government’s priorities,commitments,decisions and objectives for the community can be delivered,its website says.
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A DPC spokeswoman said the Queensland government was recently ranked by Randstad as Australia’s fourth most attractive employer in 2023,scoring highly for long-term job security,great career progression,and attractive salary and benefits packages – a result also reflected in the recent workplace survey.
“This is in part due to DPC having a highly engaged workforce – employees who are proud to work for the department,and serve the people of Queensland.”
There are 475 full-time-equivalent employees in the department,making it one of the smallest agencies and positively tiny when compared with behemoths such as Education (75,821 employees) and Health (101,032 employees).
The Queensland public sector is the state’s largest employer,providing work to more than 5 per cent of Queensland’s population.