Personal Group, a technology-enabled employee services business, has surveyed more than 1550 UK employees about their happiness, enthusiasm, pride and efficiency at work. The research is the second annual national survey of this kind from Personal Group.

The results showed that despite a gender pay gap of 17.9% across all employees, women are happier; more enthusiastic and prouder about the work they do than their male colleagues. Almost 45% of women said that they are happy at work either quite often or most of the time. This compared with only 34.5% of men.

Similarly, where enthusiasm was concerned, 42.8% of women felt enthusiastic about their work quite often or most of the time - versus 36.1% of men. Of the employees who rarely feel happy, enthusiastic and proud at work - men score 6.4% higher than women, across all categories. 

However, men are keener than women to get to work in the morning and one reason for this may be that men feel more satisfied that they are recognised for their contribution at work. When questioned, 39.8% of men - against 47.2% of women - valued recognition as a preferred benefit. Overall, money was voted the most important benefit by both 60.9% of men and 63.3% of women. Men are more in favour of longer-term benefits, such as life and health insurance and 33.8% said these would make them happier at work, compared to just 27% of women.

With regard to going to work each morning, men at a senior level are more reticent. Of the male company owners and directors surveyed, 44.4% are rarely keen to go to work, against 6.3% of their female counterparts. However, for frontline workers, the percentage of men and women reluctant to go to work is practically the same - 51.2% of women and 50.4% of men.

Deborah Frost - Chief Executive at Personal Group - said:

“I’m encouraged that Gender pay reporting continues to drive the conversation around pay discrepancies and we’re seeing progress at several large organisations including Greggs, H & M and Mitchell and Butlers. However, many organisations have seen their gap stall – or even increase and, although this may be due to positive initiatives such as increasing the intake of women at entry level, these short-term fluctuations in results are only forgivable so long as organisations are also implementing evidence-based initiatives to support a targeted plan and drive meaningful improvements.

Regardless, it’s clear that UK businesses still have a long way to go. Our research echoes this frustrating state of affairs – it’s no surprise that more money and more recognition are the most in-demand benefits amongst women when asked how employers could increase their workplace happiness.

Despite women being paid less, they are actually happier and more enthusiastic at work compared to men, with just 34.5 per cent of male employees saying they often feel happy at work. This is just as concerning and is something that British businesses must explore further and work to improve.

Closing the gender pay gap and the gender happiness gap requires businesses to ask themselves some difficult questions - and a willingness to act if they discover less than satisfactory responses. Making progress will undoubtedly require changes to culture and strategy, but if businesses can make sure they’re communicating openly with their employees around both pay and happiness, everyone will benefit.”