Happy in the workplace
Most Polish employers and employees are satisfied with their working conditions, according to a recent survey by IQS Quant Group carried out for Eden Springs Poland. As many as 67 percent of 400 employees surveyed are even very satisfied with their working conditions.
Experts say Polish employers are becoming more and more aware of the importance of providing their workers with a decent working environment.
"For the employers it is an investment in the employees' productivity and not just doing them a favor," says Professor Janusz Czapiński, a sociologist from the University of Warsaw.
On the one hand the results should not be very surprising - with an 18-percent unemployment rate many people are expected to be satisfied with whatever they come across in their workplace once they get a job. However, employers seem to be keen to keep their employees sweet. Czapiński, who has been examining the quality of Poles' lives since the early 1990s, says that working conditions in Poland have been systematically improving.
The survey showed that the notion of "investment in the employee" is understood differently by employees and employers. The first group, when talking about the improvement of working conditions, point to the general atmosphere (19 percent) and social facilities (17 percent). The employers in turn would improve the conditions through investing in the modernization and expansion of their offices in the first place.
Improving employees' qualifications is still very much down the list of priorities for Polish mangers. "Training is crucial in the modern market economy. But there is still a lot to be done in Poland," says Henryk Michałowicz from the department of economic and social expertise at the Polish Employers' Confederation.
"Half of the employers perceive an improvement of working conditions as structural and equipment investment," says Professor Wiesława Kozek, the head of the Sociology Department at Warsaw University. "This means that Polish employers are in the initial phase of building business basics. This is why investing in human capital, which is natural for more developed countries, is not mentioned by Polish entrepreneurs."
Only 16 percent of workers associate salary increases as a factor for improving working conditions and only five percent of employers admit that their workers ever ask for a pay rise. "Once established, the salary rate is spread in a longer time period. In the meantime, other elements that employees have to deal with on an every day basis appear," explains Czapiński, stressing how important work is for the average Polish person. "Poles are the second-hardest working people after Korean workers as far as weekly working hours are concerned. Satisfaction from their work has a great impact on their life in general," he adds.
