Saw this today - interesting.
I'm sure the 'study' was done to bolster the training aspects but it does seem to ring true.
Not everyone comes into work with the same level of engagement, motivation, and passion each day. But if more than a few of your employees are making a habit out of being tired, stressed, and unmotivated, you might have a problem on your hands.

A recent study by Dale Carnegie Training showed that nearly three-quarters of employees aren’t fully engaged at their jobs. A lack of engagement could be a sign pointing to poor job satisfaction--and dissatisfied employees could be costing you more than you think.

Aside from the high price of employee turnover, you could also be losing money due to their carelessness or lack of engagement. It’s best to spot the signs of unhappy employees early and do your best to get them back on track to being happier, more engaged, and profitable.

Here are the top 10 reasons your employee’s full-time job may be hating their job:

10. They think the grass is greener someplace else. If your employee’s friends are having an amazing experience at another company, why wouldn’t they be envious? The transparency of employee benefits and perks at other companies can sometimes lead your employees to dream about working elsewhere.

Keep an eye on what other companies are doing and try to match where you can. Sure, your company’s perks aren’t going to be on par with Google, but why not try to give your employees something worth bragging about? They’ll be more motivated, eager to spread the good word, and you’ll benefit from an improved company culture.

9. Their values don’t align with the company. Dissatisfaction is bound to take place if your employees aren’t sold on the same things you are. If your company values creativity and collaboration, it’s in your best interest to make screening for these values a mandatory part of your hiring process. Regular feedback and reviews can help you stay in tune with employees’ values and how they align with what the company needs and values most.

8. They don’t feel valued. If you aren’t taking the time to pat your employees on the back, it’s bound to impact employee happiness. Recognition breeds feelings of value and loyalty. What are you doing to show your employees they’re valued members of the company? This doesn’t mean giving monetary rewards for every accomplishment--instead, regularly utilize verbal praise and offer the occasional gift or reward for awesome performance.

7. Job insecurity. It’s easy to dislike your job when you’re worried whether you will still have it a few months or a year from now. If your company is going through hard times, the instability may be taking a toll on your employees. Remain transparent and work on keeping spirits high and your team engaged...or they might end up leaving you out of fear.

6. There’s no room for advancement. What’s your company’s policy for promotions? Many employees end up feeling stuck when there’s no chance of advancing within their company. This often leads to job hopping. Your company may be small, but it’s important to create a plan for employees to grow with you.

5. They’re unhappy with their pay. Nothing extinguishes passion quite like the feeling of being paid less than you deserve. Evaluating the salaries of your employees can be unrealistic at certain times, but you should consider asking your employee what they feel they should be making -- their honesty may surprise you.

4. There’s too much red tape. Rules may be ruining your team. Nothing is more frustrating than being unable to make your own decisions. Boost the autonomy of your employees by giving them room to accomplish goals. This establishes a healthy level of trust, productivity, and benefits the company as a whole.

3. They’re not being challenged. Your employees are on a constant search to advance their skills and improve through their work with you. A lack of meaningful, challenging work is certain to breed disdain. Find out whether your employees feel like they’re learning or advancing their knowledge. If they’re not becoming better, they will go someplace where they feel they can improve.

2. The passion’s gone. There’s a huge difference between living to work and working to live. Do your employees love what they do? The current job climate has led many people to take on jobs they don’t love. Focus on hiring thoroughly passionate employees and giving them a purpose to maintain their passion throughout their time on the job.

1. Their boss sucks. Poor management can ruin even the most passionate and well-paid employees love for their job. Don’t let your awful management and leadership skills ruin the drive of your workforce. Do you micromanage and criticize? Are you a bad communicator? If you have unhappy employees, the first thing you should look at is your management habits. The next thing to do is actually talk to your employees to get to the bottom of the problem.

Brushing off unhappy employees will damage your company. Get to the bottom of their troubles before you lose a valuable employee.

What are some other factors for why people hate their jobs?

About Ilya Pozin:

Founder of Ciplex. Columnist for Inc, Forbes & LinkedIn. Gadget lover, investor, mentor, husband, father, and '30 Under 30' entrepreneur. Follow Ilya below to stay up-to-date with his articles and updates!

how about LubeMeister666 ??

"Just when I thought I was out...
They pulled me back in!"

I say you write a book about the seedy underside of the lube buisness... name names! Bring them all down with you!

ScentAir | Scent Solutions, Scent Marketing, Sensory Branding

I sell and intangible "experience" for a more than tangible cost! LOL

I "get it" and is why I can sell it but damn its hard... Really hard...

Not all that seedy...the business it self is boring, the way its done isnt.

I recommend rotating your screen names for the various chat boards that you visit.

"Pregnant and scared" rotates from the stripper lounge, to the science of lubrication board.

"Lubed_and_Ready" goes from the looking for love forum to the Under 25 single women board.

and that means we here at Pelican end up getting "Dont_Hate_Me_Cause_I'm_Lubed" from the Curious but Looking for Lube board.

Selling marketing tools can be hard. I sell LED signs, but convincing people that the way they've been marketing can be improved is hard... Especially if they've not been doing any marketing. ;)

This may have been your experience, but it is completely false. Non-competes and non-solicitations are completely enforceable (except for certain aspects in CA).

If non-competes are enforceable, why are they making people sign them now and giving them nominal raises to do so? We've hired plenty of people from competitors and vice versa. Never heard of anyone getting sued over it. Maybe the companies in my line of work are just not motivated enough to fight it out.

there is no penalty against a co. that puts illegal language into a non-compete; lots of things funnel down into the not worth the effort area

to follow up on rusnak's insight, how about "I need a roof girl" as a screen name?

I think you are right, Rick, no motivation.

My boss, the CEO, at my last company fought every one of them and never lost. He had one poor guy who he couldn't get the company to fire forced to carry a clipboard and monitor trucks coming into and leaving the plant. A monthly audit was required where he had to produce logs of his work and and had an onsite inspection to audit his situation. It was ugly.

Especially ones people can be allergic to, vary like food tastes from person to person, and don't always work like they should...

The latest non-compete language not only says you can't work for another company in the same industry, can't solicit former client or co-workers, it now says you also cannot even work in the marketing or communications fields for six mos. after termination. That sounds like a stretch to me. Mine says I just can't work for another company that does the same thing we do for up to a year. But I know of several cases where we've hired folks away from competitors, who must have had non-competes, and nothing happened. And I know we haven't pursued former employees who went to competitors. I would think they'd want to make an example out of someone once in a while just to make folks take these documents seriously.

As a general proposition, an employer can restrict an employee's post employment competition through a non-competition agreement, which is also commonly referred to as a covenant not to compete. A non-competition agreement typically restrains the employee from engaging in a competing business with his or her former employer, in a certain geographic area, for a limited period of time following the termination of the employment relationship.

While Texas courts have been historically reluctant to enforce non-competition agreements, the Texas legislature has enacted the Covenants Not to Compete Act (the "Act"), specifically making such agreements enforceable provided there is compliance with all of the provisions of the Act. Consequently, employers seeking to prevent employees from competing after their termination must carefully draft non-competition agreements to fit within the limited perimeters established by the legislature.

The Act provides for certain distinct elements that must be present in order for a non-competition agreement to be enforceable. The agreement must:

State and Federal Jury Trials
Be ancillary to or part of otherwise enforceable agreement at the time the agreement is made;
Protect a legitimate business interest;
Contain reasonable limitations as to the scope of activity to be restrained;
Contain reasonable geographical limitations; and
Contain reasonable durational limitations.
In interpreting the Act's requirement that the covenant be "ancillary to or part of otherwise enforceable agreement" the Texas Supreme Court has held that an "at-will" employment relationship is not an "otherwise enforceable agreement" since it can be terminated by either party at any time for any reason. For this reason, a non-competition agreement that is ancillary only to an "at-will" employment agreement is invalid, no matter how reasonable and scope.

An employer cannot require an at-will employee to sign a non-competition agreement without providing some sort of independent "consideration" for the agreement. The consideration may be in the form of a bonus or a payment in addition to the employee's salary. The consideration can also be a promise to provide confidential or proprietary information to the employee in exchange for the employee signing the non-competition agreement.

Assuming that the non-competition agreement is ancillary to otherwise enforceable agreement, it must still be reasonable in scope of the activity to be restrained. The non-competition agreement must restrain no more activity than is necessary to protect the legitimate business interest of the employer. Texas courts have consistently refused to enforce agreements that vaguely prohibit all competitive activity or prohibit employment in any capacity for a competitive entity. Texas courts have also refused to enforce agreements that prohibit activity unrelated to the work the employee preformed for the former employer.

Similarly, Texas courts have also determined that non-competition agreements that contain no geographical limitations or fail to limit the scope of activity to be restrained are unreasonable and unenforceable. Generally, a reasonable area of restraint consists of only the territory in which the employee worked for the former employer. Courts have also refused to enforce non-competition agreements with nation wide applicability when the employee did not have nation wide responsibilities for the former employer. However, keep in mind that the courts have authority to reform a non-competition agreement to narrow the scope or the geographical area of the agreement so as to make it enforceable.

Many employees assume that if they are laid off or otherwise involuntary terminated by the employer that the employer cannot seek an enforcement of a non-competition agreement previously signed by the employee. This is a false assumption. Unless the contract specifically provides that it is only enforceable in the event of the employee's voluntary termination, then the employer can seek to enforce a non-competition agreement, even when the employer caused the employee to be terminated.

Employees who are presented with a non-competition agreement should carefully consider the impact that the covenant may have upon their future employment in the event that the employment is later terminated. Further, even though no independent consideration may be given for the non-competition agreement, or the agreement is completely invalid on its face as being over-broad in scope or other restrictions, the employee may very well be subjecting himself or herself to a lawsuit in the future by an employer seeking to enforce the non-competition agreement. The price of defending these lawsuits can be extremely costly. Likewise, a future employer may be reluctant to hire or retain an employee who has previously signed a non-competition agreement as the future employer may not want to take the risk of being subjected to a lawsuit involving the non-competition agreement. Thus, any employee who is presented with a non-competition agreement would be well advised to have it carefully reviewed by an attorney prior to execution.

If you have to sign a non-compete, have an attorney who specializes in this area review it. A well-written non-compete can be enforceable, but it varies from state to state.

One BIG issue with many non-compete agreements is that you cannot take a person's career away. You can restrict them from soliciting your clients, you can enforce a geographical area, for specific time periods. But you cannot say the employee can "never work in the industry for anyone, anywhere, ever again..." when that is what they do for a living.

Point is, know what you are signing. Have it reviewed by an attorney. A well-written non-compete can most assuredly keep you from doing certain things for a specified period of time. A poorly written "blanket" non-compete is as useless as the paper it is written on. Also watch for intellectual property language. That is an area that can cause you even more issues than a non-compete.

angela

A poorly written "blanket" non-compete is useful to scare employees. Many will not hire an attorney or go to court.

No matter what the contract says, state law will control (you cannot contract around public policy). But it might cost you to find out.

A former employee can always do what they think is reasonable and see fi they get a letter from the attorney their former employer retains. Then decide if you want your own hired gun.

What I would do, is before signing such an agreement, send them a letter that (1) raises issues clearly regarding specific restrictions that I am going to question, and (2) stating that I am about to have an attorney and the state labor board review my issues. And ask them if they are comfortable with that or would they like to send a less aggressive version before I do so. Then I would do exactly that.