There is a difference between being ‘happy at work’ and ‘happy with your work situation‘. The former implies a job where you feel fulfilled every single day and work is a pleasure; the latter focuses more on being satisfied with the role your work plays in your life. This could be a role that is less fulfilling but stable and doesn’t unduly stress you, or a role that doesn’t pay as well as you like but still pays alright and makes you feel like you are contributing. ‘Happy at work’ is a somewhat nebulous concept built on overreaching expectations and often leads to disappointment and frustration, while ‘happy with your work situation’ is far more pragmatic and forgiving.
But how to reach that goal? According to our Money Diaries Facebook group there are three basic tenets (in no particular order):
1. Work/life balance
2. Just pay – pure, simple, essential
3. Enjoying your work
This is, of course, oversimplified. These aren’t the only three things that you can or should get from your job: a great package comes to mind, along with working conditions and safety, and the opportunity to learn new skills. But at its core you can often boil down job satisfaction to these three factors.
We asked some women in the group for their insight on how they managed to find all three across a range of industries. Whether you’re feeling stuck in your career or just looking for some inspiration, their journeys to their positions will hold some answers.
“I work in business development for a science centre, booking events and raising awareness of partnership opportunities. We’re a registered charity so it’s really easy to enjoy the job (you see the result of the money you’re bringing in every day) and I find the work/life balance is very much part of the culture of the organisation as it’s valued by the leadership team, which trickles downwards. Being in the third sector naturally results in a lower wage than you’d get in the private sector but I have no complaints, I’d rather have the other two [factors] over a super high income!
I started this job three and a half years after graduating uni – it’s my third ‘proper’ job. I was really looking for more job satisfaction in this role, which I knew I would get. The work/life balance and pay are just added bonuses.
My advice is to trust the process; your current job might not be your forever job but it’s probably an important step on the way.”
My job is ensuring continuity of medicines for the UK and EU markets and ensuring there is integrity at every point in the supply chain based on risk analysis. It gives me a great work/life balance: since taking the job last year I work entirely from home, which allows me to take a late lunch break to pick my son up from school. This in turn means the extortionate childcare I used to pay out for is now not needed. My son prefers a shorter day and is much happier in himself, it also means as soon as I log off (usually around 5pm) we have extra time to do his school book reading, get dinner on the table a little earlier or do something fun. When I worked in an office, I was picking him up from after-school club and getting in at 6.15 so the extra hour or so in the evening is fantastic.
I really enjoy my job. I finally feel valued, which is a great feeling. I went for a promotion twice at my last workplace and both times was rejected yet I was expected to train the person coming in. A lot of people left in a short space of time, which is a shame as I made a couple of good friends there, but my mental health is so much better now.
I’ve been working straight out of college since 19 and I’m about to turn 33 so it’s taken a while to get the balance just right. I don’t think it’s an overnight thing, it takes time for things to align and click into place. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the role initially. As it’s a small company I’m involved with far more than I would expect to be at a bigger company with a more established footprint. However I very much enjoy getting to know the ins and outs, and this is always helpful as there is complete transparency in the processes. It also helps having a lovely manager – I’ve had some awful ones over the years!
It’s sometimes difficult to toe the line between ‘putting up’ with things in a work environment and putting your mental health first. I’ve had two work-induced mental health breakdowns, one of which in hindsight I could have perhaps managed better and another that was a situation entirely out of my control. I think it’s easy these days to see influencers and others on social media ‘living their best life’ and want to jack it all in but resilience is a really key thing that I think a lot of us underestimate.”
“Working on the regulator side rather than the industry side means that my working hours are very predictable and work stays within its designated hours. When I worked in industry, supporting a 24/7 operation, every problem needed dealing with regardless of when it happened. So if there was a breakdown on a Friday night, that was my weekend gone.
These days the only out-of-hours work that’s expected is when I’m on call, and that’s unusual. Because I regulate industry, my pay is benchmarked as a % of industry average. This means it’s below average but this reflects the better working conditions. I reckon my hourly equivalent rate is actually higher than when I was in industry but obviously hourly rate isn’t particularly relevant in professional roles.
I get good job enjoyment as I get to use my expertise and qualifications to drive industry to do the right thing, and also input to policy and strategy development. Yes, I don’t get the same thrills as some of the high points of working in frontline operations – but my job no longer takes over my life, which leaves space to get far more fun and satisfaction in life outside of work.
I changed to this job after 10 years in industry after graduating with a master’s in engineering. I took a pay cut to take it (~10% on a nominally like-for-like basis, plus losing some remote/shift working uplifts and share packages). It’s definitely not a role I saw myself doing while I was at uni, or even three or four years ago. Up until that point I was very focused on career progression and chasing opportunities to gain experience.
Work out how much you think you need to be paid to get the quality of life you’re looking for. There comes a point where the sacrifices you make for a higher salary aren’t necessarily worth it – but that can be hard to recognise. Better work/life balance can result in lower living costs so things start to balance out (e.g. having time and energy to make lunch, book things in advance, cook not get takeaway etc.).
Getting everything in the work/life balance, job satisfaction and pay you like early on in your career probably isn’t realistic. So work out what matters and what you’re willing to compromise on for a period of time to progress towards something closer to your ideal.”
I investigate and help prosecute all types of fraud associated with a local authority and its finances, which can be anything from certain types of benefit fraud and social housing fraud to public grants e.g. business COVID grants, contractor fraud and so on. I have an okay salary at £33,000 – I’m not going on Caribbean holidays every summer but I can make it work and am grateful for it. For me it is offset by decent holiday allowances (30 days + bank holidays) and the capacity to utilise flexi time, so if I work late one day I can bank that time to build it up for the future. They are very generous with time off for medical appointments for me (I have bipolar disorder) and even after having had about nine months’ sickness in a two-year period, their priority was to help me and support me rather than punish me, which makes ALL the difference.
I have performance targets but they are not rigid and I don’t really suffer if I don’t meet them. I had the capacity to work from home even before the pandemic and to set my own hours, although we are expected to work core hours (10am-3pm). It means I can adjust my schedule to fit in with my life. I have a 5-year-old who needs to be taken and collected from school, which is no issue for them (although I share this with my husband, whose employer is also very accommodating). My employer paid for my professional qualifications and genuinely supports my career. We are able to access some amazing learning opportunities and are actively encouraged!
I’m 37 and it’s taken me a few years to become much more comfortable and stable with myself to be able to make myself the priority but since joining my team about a decade ago, that confidence and peace of mind has just been able to grow. I still have moments of imposter syndrome but I also have confidence in my abilities. I’m not sure if I ever ‘expected it’ from a job/employer but now I have it, I cannot fathom how or why an employer would not want to treat their employees well.
I think it definitely shows a lot about a business if it isn’t invested in its staff as a culture and if direct management don’t also want to support their staff and treat them well. I don’t think I would tolerate it now – my wellbeing surpasses my desire to be a ‘perfect employee’. I haven’t cast a gaze over a job advert in nearly a decade and can genuinely see myself staying with the council ’til I retire, whether in this role or in a different one I choose.”
In my current role I’m given autonomy and freedom but also enough support to achieve. I run a ‘startup’ within an established business and this means I get all the excitement and challenges of building a new business but with the security of a safety net. In lots of ways I think this is why it’s so enjoyable – it’s not an adrenaline-fuelled role where I lose sleep over whether I can pay my mortgage if it all goes wrong. I’m given the flexibility to be very involved in the wider business while still exploring a new venture.
I am well paid for my work and this is the first time in my career to date that I can honestly say I don’t feel I’ve had to fight for that. Reporting in to the founder CEO, I expected my first review to be one where I’d need to justify asking for a pay rise (having come in to the role underpaid on the same money as my previous job, in a sideways move of sorts) but the experience was the opposite. He brought it up, he suggested the level he felt I should be at and I believe the company genuinely wants to pay people what their role is worth and not get away with as little as possible (sadly the experience I’ve seen in every other company I’ve worked at).
I spent the eight years prior to this role working in a toxic company where the only goal was profit and never employee wellbeing or retention. I constantly felt like I was trying to do my job (managing director) with one hand tied behind my back as the founders would frequently withhold information, undermine decisions I had made and just generally be abhorrent human beings (to put it bluntly).
My advice is don’t stay in the right role at the wrong company. What I do now is largely the same as my old role but at a company that values its employees and which is run by inherently good people. If you don’t have that where you are, you’ll be searching forever. You can change your role, you can’t change the company’s DNA. If it’s toxic, it will always be toxic. Get the hell out!”
I work from my studio where I offer full floral services for weddings, small events and seasonal bouquets. Being a studio florist and not shop-based allows me great flexibility and time to really invest in my clients and projects. It allows me to take my son and collect him from school every day, meet friends for midweek brunch, accept projects I really want to do (and decline the ones that aren’t right for me), take days off when I need to and work an evening instead if I need to catch up – I’m a night owl so this works for me.
I’m 35 and have been working since I was 16. I’m now two years into my business and five years as a florist and I can full-heartedly say that I love my job and the balance that it allows for me to be a mother and a proud business owner. Prior to this I worked in retail, hospitality, call centre, office support and HR – a huge variety and a long, experimental road to get here. The balance I currently have works for me.
My advice would be to work out what you want out of your life. Is it money? Balance? Peace? Enjoyment? What motivates you? I’ve never been motivated by money, for me it’s purely self-fulfilment and working to my own dream. I always struggled in large companies with not being able to really make impactful decisions, not ever feeling valued and not really enjoying what I did. I had the realisation very early in my working life that I needed to work creatively, independently and for my own pleasure. Cliche but life really is too short to waste years fulfilling someone else’s dream or lining a large firm’s pocket.”
My current job is a graphic designer role at a large creative agency working on one account, which is a well-known global brand. The balance is great right now because all issues or queries are supported by project managers so there’s no situation in which I would be stressed. Timelines are fair and give me time to experiment and not just churn out work to get it out the door.
The pay is great for this role. I did take a small pay cut but it’s not something I’ve noticed and well worth it to move on from my last job. Everyone is super friendly in my team and the line manager is always keen to make sure we’re chatting about stuff outside of work despite WFH. I’ve been a designer for eight years now and this is the first job that hasn’t brought me regular stress due to workload, demanding turnaround times and ineffective project management.
I’ve spent years caring about going up the ladder but I’ve now reached a point where I care most about being able to shut my laptop on time and work with respectful people. I went freelance, which vastly increased my salary after spending years not getting salary reviews and only having low-paying roles available. Now I am permanent again I’ve been able to retain the high salary.
My advice for people searching for job satisfaction is to go into bigger companies if you want an easier time. Startups are stressful and mean a lot of working outside remit and working hours. Actually my main advice would be to not stick around in a job that makes you miserable, being around people who don’t make you feel good. Life is too short and if it means putting the hours in to trawl job sites and email recruiters once you finish work for a while, once you get that new job it’ll feel worth it.”
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