Fresh Thinking From 2020

From today's Age:

'Melbourne economist Nicholas Gruen, director of Lateral Economics, won backing for his plan for government to do annual workplace surveys to ask how contented workers were. Firms competing for top talent would feel competitive pressure to publish their results — and ensure they scored well.'

I think that this could be a good idea. However, if this type of reporting were to be introduced there will be pressure placed on employees by employers/human resources management to boost the surveys in order to attract the best recruits.

There may even be some bias from employees themselves in spruiking their respective firms. After all, given the incentive of attracting highly competent and motivated colleagues, I'm sure it would be in most employees interests to overstate their workplace contentment.

I guess at the end of the day, anything that encourages a more fully informed market will be a good outcome, but we should be mindful of the possibilities for gaming such a survey.