How To Join The 9% Who Look Forward To Monday Morning

A survey that we did at Proteus before the recession showed that only 9% of the working population really look forward to Monday mornings, feel fulfilled and get on well at work. As for the rest, they feel unhappy at work, frustrated, demotivated, and even though it pays the bills, feel they’d much rather be doing something else on Monday mornings.

There were many reasons for this but one of the main ones was the process people go through when they receive a job offer. On receiving a job offer, whether by letter or by e-mail, most people will mentally discard all the words and focus on the numbers. Typically they ask themselves questions such as the following:

What’s the basic salary? Is there a bonus structure in place? If so, how does the calculation work for me? How many days leave do I get? I’m sure you will have asked yourself these and many other related questions when you received your most recent offer – even if it was several years ago.

What most people do next is to compare these numbers with their ideal, and that’s usually based on their own personal history. If the numbers stack up, they then accept the offer without giving a single thought to the nature of the working environment and the values of the organisation they will be entering. They do this even though it may have been the culture and nature of their current working environment that gave the initial impetus to their search for a new position.

So, if you want to join the 9%, it is essential, before accepting a job offer, to include the concept of “what’s the working environment like” into your due diligence: it’s not just about the numbers! How do you find out about the working environment before you join the company? Some of your questions at the end of the interview need to be open quesions about the culture and ethos of the organisation such as: “Could you tell me about the management style?” or “What’s the communication culture like?”

If you have an example from your own career – positive or negative – that you’d like to share and that I can pass onto my current clients, then I’d love to hear from you.

Mike is the CEO and Founder of Proteus Consultancy’s Career Management Services