Do social media professionals work harder than their peers?
Here’s some scary stats:
* 29% of employees are fully engaged with work
* 52% are not fully engaged
* 19% are disengaged
Len Kendal asked on Twitter “I wonder how much poor performance got disguised as “a result of the economy” this year?”
I wonder how much of that poor performance was because of the 71% of employees who were not fully engaged? Re-orgs and layoffs (or even the rumor of layoffs) have a crippling effect on employees. I would wager that the number of disengaged employees sky rockets during those times. However I don’t think the number of fully engaged employees changes all that much. Why? Because those 29% are the ones that love their job. They love the work they are doing, they love where they work or, probably, both.
Justin Foster sent out this link via Twitter:
What Should I Do With My Life? | Fast Company
The previous era of business was defined by the question, Where’s the opportunity? I’m convinced that business success in the future starts with the question, What should I do with my life? Yes, that’s right. The most obvious and universal question on our plates as human beings is the most urgent and pragmatic approach to sustainable success in our organizations.
What would our economy be like if everyone loved what they did? That’s probably impossible since I doubt some people will never love any type of work but imagine if even the difference between fully engaged and partially engaged flipped. That would be huge.
I personally think that we have largely become a lazy nation. In just about every way. People don’t want to do more than they have to. People don’t want to do more than the other guy.
If people only understood how little extra effort it really takes to be a leader. Seriously even putting in a full 8 hours a day moves you to the top 29%.
I think that’s why I love social media professionals (not to be confused with some of the 71% that are killing time on social networks). The social media professionals I know regularly put in 15-20 hours a day of hard work. We love what we do. We work as hard as we do not because we have to, but because we get to. I don’t know if it’s a result of the industry we are in or a result of the people. I tend to think it’s the later. I think if social media didn’t exist, or when it’s really gone main stream and isn’t as exiting we’ll have move on to the next thing and be equally passionate about that.
Please note that A) I am seriously biased here and B) I am not saying there aren’t those among my peers that don’t work just as hard if nt harder than me. However in my experience there seems to be a larger amount of the 29% crowd in social media than there is in the more traditional areas of business.
What do you think? Do social media professional work harder than our peers? Do we do it because social media brings that out in people or because of the type of people we are? Or have I drank too much of my own punch?
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