介绍:
Xiaohua: Let’s talk about work pressure again at the end of the Spring Festival Holiday for most people. As a new year begins, a business-oriented social networking service LinkedIn issued a workplace pressure report, indicating that 44% of the office workers in China are under heavy pressure.
近日，领英发布了《2014中国职场压力报告》。报告指出，超过44%的人认为自己在职场承受的压力很大。
But is it all that surprising to you?
Heyang: If it’s self-reporting, then I would want to say ‘I’m under a lot of pressure too’. It’s very easy to say that. Okay, John, you think differently.
John: I don’t think you would be that dishonest if someone actually asked you.
Heyang: Well, I do feel pressure. I mean who doesn’t feel pressure? I can’t think of anybody who can just say ‘oh, life is so great carefree!’
Xiaohua: We have a deadline everyday by the way.
John: Yeah, there is certainly is that. But it’s not like they are asking people how pressured do you feel. Do you feel pressured? No. LinkedIn is a very savvy company and they’ve been around for a long long time. Perhaps one of the bigger success stories when it comes to online social networking. The fact that they are still here. They’ve been around since the middle 2000s. So the fact that they are still here gives them quite a bit of credibility.
Looking at this report, basically, all they are saying is that a little bit under half of people report they are under heavy pressure at the workplace and on average 43% say they work more than 50 hours every week. That’s really the number we should be looking at. That is a lot. That’s a good way to measure how much pressure or stress one is under.
Heyang: And the 5 industries that LinkedIn surveyed for the report includes internet, advertising and media, real estate, finance, and retail. So I would say pretty high-pressure industries are being asked here. So that should be kept in mind as well.
Xiaohua: Exactly. They are not asking all industries, but they picked out these 5 industries. But it does seem a little bit interesting. For example, the internet people have the longest working hours which is about twice of that in real estate. And also retail workers admit to being most pessimistic about their career. Could be true considering retail is not very strong at the moment.
John: Retail in general. It’s so funny because that a lot of people these days think I can open a shop, I can do nails, I can sell books, I can open a coffee shop without realizing it takes a lot of hard work. And most people when you go to a coffee shop these days, and you see a lot of young people lazing around and they are the owners or whatever, you are not going to see that coffee shop in the next 6 months. It’s going to be out of business in the next 6 months. Because you have to be able to weather the first two or three years of investment and actually losing money.
Now looking at IT, it’s interesting because they work the longest hours but they also have one of the most positive work environments.
Xiaohua: That’s true. And also advertising people say they sleep the shortest. It could be true because I guess a lot of the work has to be done at night.
