Pandemic Toll Looms Large - Healthcare & Education

In our previous blog post, Employees Are Unhappier than Ever, we talked about the steep decline in employee happiness and ranked eight industries from least to most happy with data from The Great Gloom by Bamboo HR®. In this blog, we’ll dive deeper into the two industries with the lowest happiness scores, Healthcare and Education.

Healthcare
The unhappiest industry of 2023 is Healthcare. Due to the trauma, dissatisfaction and burnout that followed the pandemic, employee happiness has been steadily declining. From 2020 to 2022 employee happiness fell at a rate of 40%, but in the six months from January to June 2023, it plummeted at a rate of 89%. According to a report by Elsevier Health, 71% of US doctors feel their role has become worse over time. This is evidenced by the 47% of US healthcare workers that plan to leave their current positions by 2025. And 39% of those workers plan to leave the profession entirely. With numbers like this, healthcare staff shortages are predicted to worsen over time.

Education
Education is one of the most volatile industries. Its happiness spikes during the winter holidays and summer vacation, with noticeable drops when teachers return to the classroom. The pandemic took a huge toll on educators, and burnout persists. A majority of teachers, 67%, report it as a very serious issue, according to a National Education Association survey. Even more shocking, 55% of educators say they are considering leaving the industry or retiring early. Educators are feeling overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. Only 12% are “very satisfied” with their jobs. While reasons for this unhappiness are complex, a few include poor workplace cultures, standardized testing and burnout-inducing workloads caused by staff shortages. Adding to the already dismal morale, 74% of teachers feel unsatisfied with their pay. And less than half of educators feel respected by the public.

Solutions
These numbers are bleak, and these industries are experiencing extreme burnout. Substantial changes need to be made before numbers improve. However, change can be possible at the individual level if a culture of recognition is prioritized. While this won’t fix the large-scale issues presented above, it can help retain individuals until their industry improves. A peer-reviewed study of more than 20,000 healthcare workers found that efficient team work and feeling valued leads to lower burnout. These finding are encouraging and show that creating a culture of recognition really makes a difference in employee experience.