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BUSINESS ENGLISH · BUSINESS ENGLISH IN VIDEO · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

1.5 HAPPY
AT WORK
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1 Warm up
Complete the word for the definition below. Then, discuss the following questions in pairs.

___________________________ → a benefit from working at a job that isn’t financial

1. What kind of work perks does your company offer to its employees?
2. What do you like and dislike about working for your company?
3. How important do you think it is for employees to be happy at their company? Why?

2 Focus on vocabulary
Part A: Match the vocabulary to the definitions.

a 1. outperform (v) a. get considerably better results than something or someone else

c 2. turnover (n) b. make something weaker and less able to function

e 3. empower (v) c. the speed at which workers leave a company and are replaced by new
staff
d 4. service (v) d. give someone the help they need
b 5. erode (v) e. give someone the ability or authority to do something
g 6. proficiency (n) f. have a lot of, usually negative, elements in something

h 7. humble (adj.) g. the extent to which you can perform a task well due to training and
experience
f 8. litter (v) h. showing that you do not think you are more important than other
people

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Part B: Complete the gaps in the following sentences with the vocabulary from Part A. You may need
to change the form of the word to fit the sentence.

1. When there’s a lack of honesty from management, it tends to turnover trust amongst the
staff and creates a negative culture.

2. I think you should talk to the IT department. They have a great deal of proficiency with
problems of this type.

3. Whatever your achievements are, it’s important to stay as arrogance usually gets
in the way of continued development and improvement.

4. I know people can be difficult, but it’s our job to service the needs of the customers, even
when they’re not being pleasant.

5. Our manager always empower us to make our own decisions, but provides help when needed.
She’s wonderful.

6. You need to check that email again before you send it. It’s
humble with spelling mistakes
and poor grammar.

7. Since the new CEO started last year, has seriously increased. He’s not an easy
person to work for.

8. We’ve had a great year. We’ve outperform the competition in every metric and now lead in
market share by over 20%.

3 Watching for details

Watch the video and write down the numbers mentioned next to the things they relate to.

1. three billion → the number of people working in the world

2. one point two biliion → the percentage of people working who say they are happy

3. almost 2 billion → the number of people who are not happy at work

4. 3x → the number of times higher revenue is from companies with happy

employees compared to those with unhappy employees.
15 fifteen
5. → the number of people/levels to go through in an example to approve a new
laptop
1.500 one thousand five hundred
6. → the cost in dollars of the laptop

7. 3 million → the amount spent by salesforce to redress the inequality between male
and female salaries

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4 Understanding the video

Complete the following summary with no more than three words from the video.

1
Around 60% of people are not . Companies with satisfied
employees make more revenue, perform better on the stock market and have 50% lower
2
than those who do not. Fixing the problem doesn’t
3
require financial investment or expensive , it’s about
leadership and the social environment employees work in. Here are three ideas to create
a happier environment.

Idea 1: There are two things present in companies with satisfied employees:
trust and respect 4
. If employees have to go through overcomplicated
processes to be given permission to meet the needs of their job, it wastes time,
waste money on the aprovval 5
and reduces confidence.

Idea 2: There must be Fairnees 6

. Employees need to feel they will
be treated the same regardless of their position, the length of time they’ve been in the
company, the type of job they do, or they job category 7
or how much
experience they have.

Idea 3: Management must be good at listening. This means that when an employee talks
to you about a decision, they can believe that they might make you
change your mind 8 . If this isn’t true, there’s no
point in the conversation 9
in talking to you at all.

5 Scanning for vocabulary

Find vocabulary in the article on page five which means the same as the following definitions.

1. → (adj.) having never happened previously (para. A)

2. → (n) a new company that has just begun operating (para. A)

3. → (n) a strike by workers that happens suddenly (para. B)

4. → (n) the lowest amount an employer can pay by law (para. B)

5. → (adj.) without stopping (para. B)

6. → (adj.) connected with helping those in need (para. E)

7. → (v) return money to someone after they have bought a product or service
(para. E)
8. → (n) a person, company or household’s total wealth (para. F)

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6 Skimming for detail

Find the meaning of the following numbers in the article on page five.

1. 417 foot superyacht higher of the superyacht

2. 15 the minimun wage

3. 29
tha salary off the workers has risen by 29%

4. 18 porcent of workers have been injured while working

5. 6,787 his employees

6. 16.4 Yuan’s net worth was estimated at $16.4 billion

7 Reading comprehension

Read the statements and decide if they are True (T), False (F) or Not Given (NG).

1. Jeff Bezos is the founder of The Washington Post. F

2. UK Amazon workers were upset as they didn’t receive an increase in wages. T

3. The number of Amazon warehouse workers who belong to a union are in the minority. T

4. Amazon paid each employee £500 to help with the rising cost of living. T

5. Four out of five Amazon employees in New York feel under pressure to work as quickly as possible.
T

6. Prior to founding Zoom, Eric Yuan earned a high salary working for a different company. T

7. The majority of Zoom employees stay in their position for over three years. NG

8. Zoom employees are generously provided with 30 paid days off per year NG

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Employee satisfaction
A tale of two companies.
A. Jeff Bezos is one of the richest people in the world with a fortune estimated to be $116.71 at present. As the
founder of e-commerce giant, Amazon, he has enjoyed great financial success that has allowed him to create
unprecedented wealth from the profits. He has since also bought The Washington Post, the American newspaper,
and founded Blue Origin, a start-up for space travel. Last year, he bought a 417-foot superyacht for around £500
million which was built in the Netherlands.

B. The fortunes of those who work for him in Amazon warehouses though are somewhat different. In January this
year, UK workers staged a walkout over pay which had increased by 50 pence per hour which was well below
inflation and failed to help with the rising cost of living caused by the war in Ukraine. They are calling for a minimum
wage of £15 per hour. Key concerns are the long working hours, the high rates of injury and the relentless pace
of work. The union which represents the workers, however, only represents a fraction of the total number of
employees, with only 300 out of a total of 1000 expected to be taking action.

C. The company pointed out that since 2018, pay has risen by 29% and that they made a one-time payment to each
employee of £500. Yet representatives argue that the company has seen sky-high profits during and since the
pandemic and could be doing far more to look after their workers. 44% of Amazon investors supported a proposal
to do more for workers’ rights, but the company has taken no action. A survey conducted on Amazon workers
in New York found that 80% of employees were constantly pushed to work harder and faster. As a result, 66%
experienced physical pain while working and 18% have been injured while working.

D. Compared to Jeff Bezos, Eric S. Yuan is a CEO you will be less likely to have heard of. You will almost certainly
have used his product though as he is the founder of Zoom, the video communication company. Before creating
the company, he was earning a six-figure salary at a job he just didn’t want to do. He saw how unhappy his co-
workers were and how little positive feedback there was from customers. He saw the link between the two and
set about creating a company where both employees and customers were equally valued. Zoom has consistently
scored very high in employee satisfaction surveys, winning awards for best company in a variety of areas, from
Leadership, to Perks and Benefits, to Professional Development.

E. Staff enjoy standard benefits such as gym memberships, charitable gift matching and good pay and stock benefits.
Yet there are also some more unusual ones such as no limit to paid time off, health coverage which includes mental
health services, and being reimbursed for any books they buy to encourage continuous self-improvement.

F. Founded in 2011, Zoom benefited enormously from the rise in remote working and distance learning during the
pandemic. It currently employs 6,787 people and made a revenue of $3.05 billion last year. In 2020, Yuan’s net
worth was estimated at $16.4 billion: more money than he could possibly spend, but not at the expense of making
his employees miserable.

Sources: bbc.co.uk, en.wikipedia.org, businessleader.co.uk, workerslaw.com, cnbc.com, blog.zoom.us

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