Career? No longer a priority. Time and well-being win out

If there is an adjective that can no longer connote work, this adjective is 'totalising'. Today, work constitutes a tool, i.e. a source of income, but it is no longer all-encompassing, it no longer connotes identity, and it is no longer the overriding objective. The centrality is now left to time, or rather to the availability of time, to the possibility of being able to dispose of it for oneself and one's well-being. Consequently, welfare, as in the case of pay, has value if it can be the instrument to achieve this well-being. All this emerges sharply from the ninth Report on corporate welfare realised by Censis in collaboration with Eudaimon, leader in corporate welfare services, with the contribution of companies of the calibre of Campari, Credem, Edison and Michelin.

That a redefinition of priorities was already in the air for a while, at least since the pandemic experience, however, what is new in this latest survey seems to be the extent of this downshifting. Thus, for 55.1% of employees, career is not a priority in life, it is for 33.8%, and 11.1% are uncertain. The already clear data becomes even more irrefutable if we add that 44.7% of the employed consider work more as aobligation than as a passion. It is true that 42.7% disagree, but the proportion of those who have no definite opinion, 12.6%, is such that the aspect of disillusionment prevails. It is no coincidence that when considering the motivational level, the study records that it happens to almost 47% of workers "to lose the sense of their work, to 16.4% it happens often and to 30.2% from time to time".

And if rewards are in short supply - 78.9% of workers say they do not feel sufficiently recognised and valued in their work, while 62.1% of employees suffer from a lack of autonomy - the salary front is no more comforting: 57.7% of the employed in fact believe that their remuneration is not adequate for the quantity and quality of the work they do, 55.4% declare that this remuneration does not allow them to set aside money for important expenses such as making a down payment on the purchase of a house or a car. More generally, 52.4% of the employed believe that one cannot become wealthy through work. A perception that reveals how work is no longer considered an instrument of emancipation or social growth.

Thus, if the professional dimension is above all a source of malaise, this malaise manifests itself in concrete terms. In fact, 40.8% of workers have 'happened' to suffer from ergophobia at least once, i.e. to feel a strong sense of fear at the thought of going to the workplace and having to perform their work duties or, even, at the idea of having to face interviews or assessments at work. To 12% it happens often and to 28.8% from time to time, while to 59.2% it has never happened so far'. A situation of realstress is thus realised: '68.3% of the employed experience mental, physical and emotional tiredness at work, 27.8% have not experienced it so far and 3.9% do not give any indication'. When not even a de-structuring of the individual: 21.7% of Italian employed persons declare that they suffer from the syndrome of the false self, i.e. a psychological condition in which the individual constantly doubts his or her own competences, struggles to internalise his or her own successes and constantly seeks approval from others.

In order to react or to defend themselves, 43.9 per cent of the employed stated that they decided not to answer e-mails and calls outside working hours. This is because receiving emails, messages on whatsapp or similar apps, and phone calls outside working hours makes 45.8 per cent anxious.