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Radka Kasparcova started her career at Shure Inc. as a loyal customer. Kasparcova, a professional blues guitarist who plays shows across Chicago, frequently used Shure’s wireless guitar pedal at her gigs. So when she was looking to change day jobs, Kasparcova applied to work at Shure. She’s now been there 2 1/2 years, working as a financial analyst while also pursuing her passion for music. Shure, a private electronics firm in Niles, employs about 1,000 people in Chicagoland and 3,000 total worldwide.

They’re calling it the “Great Gloom.” Employee happiness has declined steadily since 2020, and is now even lower than it was during the darkest days of the pandemic. The one exception was the first quarter of this year, when workplace happiness edged up slightly before resuming its downward trend, according to a report from BambooHR, an HR software and services company with data from more than 1,600 companies. Unclear return-to-work policies, the divisive political climate and worries about layoffs are all weighing on employees. “Then there’s AI (artificial intelligence), which could be coming for your job,” said Johnny Taylor Jr., CEO of SHRM, formerly the Society for Human Resource Management.

The CTA instructor was crammed into a seat on the back end of a snowplow paused on the tracks when he saw the Yellow Line train round the curve headed toward them that November day nearly a year ago. Another employee sitting next to the instructor jumped up and said, “Oh, my God, oh, my God,” the instructor told federal, state and CTA officials days after the crash, a copy of a transcript of the interview shows.

Employee happiness is in the dumps. Satisfaction and engagement among rank-and-file workers has been declining for several years, and many workplaces are, well, gloomy. Return-to-office mandates, cost-cutting and burnout are just a few of the reasons why some employees feel down, and their discontent comes with a cost. When employees aren’t happy, they aren’t as productive.

Fifty years ago, a young entrepreneur went shop to shop selling a blue hand cleaner he created to help mechanics get grease, glue and paint off their hands. Today, that entrepreneurial venture has grown into 1st Ayd Corp., a business-to-business manufacturer and distributor of maintenance, safety and janitorial supplies. President Tommy Schreiner Jr.