- The New Normal
- Top Pay and Reward Risks Facing Employers
- The Lost 20 Percent: Engaging the Almost-Great
- What’s Important to Employees
- Retaining the Right People
- Employee Retention – How to Retain Employees
- Successful Hires in a World of Restrictive Covenants: Five Things Every Company Should Do
- IT Executives Predict Slow Recovery

Front Page

What’s Important to Employees
by   Todd Raphael   Jul 8, 2009, 3:16 pm ET

SHRM had employees use a 4-point scale to indicate what’s “very unimportant” (that’s a 1) or “very important” (that’s a 4).

The percentages below indicate how many people gave the item a 4, meaning “very important.”

The 601 full- or part-time employees were randomly selected from the U.S. telephone population.

Job security 63%
Benefits 60%
Compensation/Pay 57%
Opportunity to use skills/abilities 55%
Feeling safe in the work environment 54%
Relationship with the immediate supervisor 52%
Management recognition of employee job performance 52%
Communication between employees and senior management 51%
The work itself 50%
Autonomy and independence 47%
Flexibility to balance life and work issues 46%
Meaningfulness of job 45%
Overall corporate culture 45%
Relationships with co-workers 42%
Contribution of work to organization’s business goals 39%
Job-specific training 35%
Variety of work 34%
Career advancement opportunities 32%
Organization’s commitment to corporate social responsibility 31%
Organization’s commitment to professional development 30%
Paid training and tuition reimbursement programs 29%
Career development opportunities 22%
Organization’s commitment to a “green” workplace 17%