Who is happier at work young or old employees (Colour Run 2014)

I recently found myself at the Swisse Colour Run, where the happy faces around me reminded me about a piece of research into happiness at work. The research looked at who was happier, 19-29 year olds or 55-59 year olds.

At this years Colour Run around 20,000 participants gathered on Langley Park preparing to run down the Start Chute and be splattered with coloured corn-starch. By the time everyone had been through the five km run, eight tonnes of powder had been dispensed.

As I watched on I pondered who was happier, the runners being splattered with pink, purple, green, orange and yellow powder or the people doing the splattering?

RedBalloon CEO Kristie Buchanan recently asked people how they felt about life in regards to their career. The survey found that three in four respondents said they were happy with their working life overall (75%).

Three in four, that’s not how it seems when you casually ask people ‘How’s work?’ Usually you’re on the receiving end of a barrage of complaints. But why does this happen? Are we too embarrassed to say that we’re happy at work? Is it a societal norm to complain?

The research also found that 55-59 year olds were the most satisfied with their careers, with three in four respondents claiming to be ‘very happy’ or ‘happy’ with their work life (76%).

In contrast a smaller 60% of 19-29 year olds said that they were either ‘very happy’ or ‘happy’ with their career. This meant they were the least satisfied age group.

‘The results suggest that experience in the workforce can amplify happiness. It’s also likely that those aged 55-plus have put their ‘fight to the top’ behind them, whereas the younger respondents may be out to prove themselves,’ said RedBalloon CEO Kristie Buchanan.

‘Surprisingly, the results also showed that nearly one in three (27%) Australians who are very busy at work are very happy with their life overall.’

Lots to ponder there …

Perhaps that was why the majority of the crowd appeared to be under 40 and I hardly saw anyone over 60 years of age.
Hopefully this moment of release might help improve their enjoyment of life, even just for a morning.
Maybe someone should invent the Colour Boss Run, where disgruntled employees get to ‘colour’ their bosses as they run down the chute. Until then, there’s always next year. By then people may have just managed to get the powder out of all their crevices.