The Happiest Jobs in America

There are many key areas that affect employee happiness:

❧  the employee's relationship with their boss and co-workers
❧  work environment
❧ job resources
❧ compensation
❧ growth opportunities
❧ company culture
❧ company reputation
❧ daily tasks
❧ the amount of control the employee has over the work that they do
❧ personal satisfaction

For one thing, employee happiness is not dependent on how much they make, but rather the quality of their relationships and the amount of control they have.

Time and time again, research shows that money is not enough to keep good employees happy. From the employer's perspective, realizing salary is not one of the key drivers of workplace happiness can help employers focus on the areas which will drive job satisfaction to create a happier environment for all.

These key drivers break down into three main criteria:

1. The specific tasks their job entails on a day-to-day basis
2. How much control they have over his or her daily tasks
3. Their relationships with co-workers and customers, including supervisors and colleagues
4. Social interaction and helping people

These characteristics explain why teachers and physical therapists are on the list, but also included are autonomous, creative professions like author and artist, and labor-intensive jobs like operating engineer

Based on these criteria, here are the top happiest careers in the country

as rated by Career Bliss, Forbes Magazine and the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center:

10. Legal

Lawyers may represent a party in criminal and civil trials by presenting evidence and arguing in court to support their client or counsel their clients about their legal rights and obligations and suggest particular courses of action in business and personal matters.

9. Health Care & Physician’s Assistants

The health care industry diagnoses, treats, and administers care around the clock, responding to the needs of millions of people—from newborns to the terminally ill. 10 of the 20 fastest-growing occupations are healthcare related--something experts attribute to the growing elderly population.

Healthcare employees value the work that they do in caring for people.

8. Nonprofit-Social Services, Artists and Authors

Social workers assist people by helping them cope with and solve issues in their everyday lives, such as family and personal problems and dealing with relationships.

Artists and sculptors report high job satisfaction, despite the great difficulty in making a living from it.

For most authors, the pay is low, but the autonomy of writing down the contents of your own mind apparently leads to happiness.

Artistic work is the polar opposite of manual labor, even when one works directly with material like clay or paint not necessarily that different from the raw matter of the laborer’s work. The artist’s work is both creative and revelatory, reflecting their personal creation and revelation.

7. Finance

Financial managers oversee the preparation of financial reports, direct investment activities, and implement cash management strategies.

6. Accounting

Accountants and auditors help to ensure that firms are run efficiently, public records kept accurately, and taxes paid properly and on time.

Similar to purchasing departments, accounting personnel hold the purse strings to large corporate budgets.

5. Purchasing-Procurement and Physical Therapists

Procurement clerks compile requests for materials, prepare purchase orders, keep track of purchases and supplies, and handle inquiries about the order.

Physical therapists have great social interaction with their patients and help them improve, learn, cope or adapt to injury.

4. Admin-Clerical and Firefighters

Administrative assistants perform and coordinate an office's administrative activities and storing, retrieving, and integrating information for dissemination to staff and clients.

75% of firefighters are “very satisfied” with their jobs, which involve helping people. If you’re a firefighter, people are always happy to see you.

We often think of firefighters and police officers in the same breath, but it’s easy to see why, of these two first-responder occupations, firefighters might be happier. Police officers deal all the time with the worst side of humanity.

More than that, they deal with all sorts of ambiguous situations where it’s unclear whether or not someone is guilty, whether someone should be stopped and questioned, whether a domestic disturbance is a serious situation or something to walk away from, etc.

3. College Professors, Educators, and Special Education Teachers

The educational services industry includes a variety of institutions that offer academic education, career, and technical instruction, and other education and training to millions of students each year.

Teachers in general, report being happy with their jobs, despite the current issues with education funding and classroom conditions. The profession continues to attract young idealists, although 50% of new teachers are gone within five years.

2. Customer Service and Psychologists

These company representatives work directly with customers. These people are often personality types who enjoy helping people, conflict management and problem-solving.

Customer service employees are the happiest of all employees surveyed in terms of the amount of control they feel they have over their work.

Psychologists may or may not be able to solve other people’s problems, but it seems that they have managed to solve their own. Almost 80% reported they were very satisfied in their careers.

1. Biotechnology and Clergy

Ranked as one of the number one happiest job in America, people in biotech enjoy all the positive workplace criteria, and more specifically the person that they work for, tends to rank higher in terms of importance, and employees are overwhelmingly happy with those conditions.

Clergy:

What do people need most of all in life?

Not pleasure or power. Not career advancement or personal development.

What people need most of all is meaning.

And while all good and useful work has meaning, it’s not hard to understand why those whose lives are dedicated to serving God find the deepest meaning, and therefore the most satisfaction, of all!

Sources: Career Bliss, Forbes Magazine and the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center