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Plumbing For Joy? Be Your Own Boss
By economic yardsticks, Roger the Plumber should be feeling pretty low. Roger Peugeot, owner of the 14-employee Overland Park, Kan., plumbing company that bears his name, is part of a sector hit hard by shrunken credit and slumping sales. He has been forced to reduce staff and is battling new competition from other plumbers fleeing the construction industry.
So why is Mr. Peugeot so happy? He genuinely likes fixing plumbing messes, for one thing, and despite the worst recession he has seen, 'I'm still excited to get up and go to work every day,' he says. He relishes running into people at the local hardware store whom he has helped in the past. And in hard times, he says, his fate is in his own hands, rather than those of a manager. 'Even when things get tough, I'm still in control,' he says.
In the broadest, most-comprehensive survey yet of how occupation affects happiness, business owners outrank 10 other occupational groups in overall well-being, based on the landmark survey of 100,826 working adults set for release today. Defined as self-employed store or factory owners, plumbers and so on, business owners surpassed 10 other occupational groups on a composite measure of six criteria of contentment, including emotional and physical health, job satisfaction, healthy behavior, access to basic needs and self-reports of overall life quality.
This puts Roger the Plumber well ahead of movers and shakers typically regarded as the top of the heap in society -- professionals such as doctors or lawyers, who ranked second, and executives and managers in corporations or government, who came in third -- according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, a collaboration between Gallup and Healthways, a Franklin, Tenn., health-management concern. This is despite business owners ranking below those more-prestigious occupations in physical health and access to basic needs, such as health care.
The findings, psychologists say, reflect the importance of being free to choose the work you do and how you do it, the way you manage your time, and the way you respond to adversity. Regardless of occupational field, the survey suggests that seeking out enjoyable work and finding a way to do it on your own terms, with some control over both the process and the outcome, is likely for most people to fuel satisfaction and contentment.
'Despite the recession, it still pays to be your own boss,' says Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. The survey, adds John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 'reaffirms my view that the more control you have over your work, the happier you are.'
At the bottom of the heap, transportation and manufacturing workers scored lowest on well-being. These occupations tend to foster conditions Niosh has identified as contributors to unhealthy stress: lack of control or participation in decision-making, conflicting or unclear job expectations, and hectic tasks with little inherent meaning.
Management and executive jobs have gotten tougher, too, during the period the Gallup-Healthways data were gathered, the first eight months of this year. Beset by cost cuts and layoffs, corporate bosses at all levels now share more of these stress-inducing conditions.
Business owners stand in stark contrast. Even in tough times, 'you do your own thinking and no one can tell you you're wrong,' says Edwin Locke, an industrial psychologist and professor emeritus of leadership and motivation at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. 'You make your own decisions, and if you're wrong, reality gives you the feedback,' he says.
Another surprise from the survey: Farmers and other outdoor workers, from farmhands to forestry workers, scored No.1 among all groups in 'emotional health,' as measured mainly by the amount of smiling, laughter, enjoyment and happiness they report experiencing the previous day -- despite the fact that farmers ranked near the bottom in access to basic needs.
