Workload’s Top 3 New Year’s Resolutions for 2020 (hint: Automation is NOT #1)
How many of your New Year’s Resolutions will you stick with for the rest of 2020? We all know the classic resolutions – losing weight, exercising more, saving money, traveling – but what about work?
According to this Zapier poll, 75% of Americans are knowledge workers which means you likely commute to an office and perform your work on a computer. Since we spend over a third of our lives at work (and another third sleeping), why not set a New Year’s Resolution for your job or business?
We’ve compiled a list of the top 3 work resolutions for 2020. Keep reading to find the #1 resolution of everyone we surveyed!
#3: Becoming more efficient
Knowledge workers are working, on average, 10 hours a day. Additionally, work days don’t just start on Monday and end on Friday. Many of us are working weekends and in the evenings too.
Much of that work is busywork. Of those who responded, they spend roughly 6 hours a day on meaningful work and 4 hours on busywork. Nearly 30% said they want to become more efficient at work in 2020 as part of their New Year’s Resolution plan.
36% say their main cause of stress at work is being loaded with busy work
Not surprisingly, 9 in 10 knowledge workers stated that they found parts of their job to be stressful. The study found that being overloaded with busy work was at the top of the stress list while poor health benefits was at the bottom.
- 36% – Being overloaded with busy work
- 31% – Unable to “unplug”
- 30% – Dealing with a bad manager/employee
- 27% – Conflicts with co-workers and peers
- 25% – Not enough Paid Time Off
- 18% – Commuting to the office
- 18% – Poor benefits
#2: Improving work-life balance
Not only are knowledge workers stressed about busy work, but nearly 73% of those who were surveyed said parts of their life have been negatively impacted by their job.
Just under half of those who were surveyed said their mental or physical (or both) health was negatively impacted by being stressful work environments. The remaining half all said their hobbies, personal relationships, and overall happiness was negatively affected by their job.
Funny enough, about 20% (1 in 5) have said they’ve taken a nap while on the job! This isn’t surprising considering how over worked and stressed knowledge workers are. Many of them are not sleeping well at night because of anxiety and constantly thinking about what they need to get done at work.
#1: Getting a raise
Big shock! Americans want more money for the work they are doing. We drilled down on the tactics the people we surveyed are using to get a raise in 2020. The main areas people are focusing in on are critical thinking and leadership skills. In order of importance, here is the list of skills knowledge workers are attaining to attract more money:
– Critical thinking — 53 percent
– Leadership — 52 percent
– People management — 51 percent
– Time management — 49 percent
– Communication — 48 percent
– Innovation — 42 percent
– Automation — 28 percent
– Coding/ Programming — 16 percent
Surprisingly “learning to code” is no longer the main skill people are attaining to level up their skills. Knowledge workers were almost twice as likely to say “automation” was more important than coding and programming to get a raise.
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