WHAT EMPLOYEES REALLY WANT!

This post is partially an excerpt from a whitepaper by payscale.com entitled, "Turnover: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly."

         What makes an employee get up in the morning looking forward to the work day
         ahead?

GOOD PAY

How strongly pay contributes to employee satisfaction has been debated time and again in the literature probably because money means so many different things to different people. 

However, two truths are constant:
1) employees need money to live, and 
2) money is used as a measure of value by employers and employees.

So no matter where ranked on the latest employee survey, pay matters. Because every time an employee has to make good on a bill or consider whether he can afford a product or service, he thinks about this pay and the value his employer places on his work.



FLEXIBILITY

SHRM surveyed HR professionals about “Challenges Facing HR Over the Next 10 

Years," 59 percent responded that retaining and rewarding the best employees was their 

main concern. And when asked how they thought this goal could be achieved, 40 percent answered “providing flexible work arrangements.”


A recent article in Time magazine referenced a survey by the American Psychological Association reporting that the top reasons Americans give for not leaving their current jobs are “I enjoy the work I do” and it “fits well with the other areas of my life.” And PayScale’s Generations at Work survey found that telecommuting was the top benefit desired by Generation X (those born between 1960 and 1980).Most all employees are looking for better work/life balance and are willing to display loyalty to those employers who provide it.

RESPECT

Employees want to know what they think matters. They want to be treated as valuable members of the team with something meaningful to contribute. At the very least, employees have no desire to be shouted at, demeaned, or humiliated at work by an abusive manager or coworker. 

Employers who give more than lip service to the notion of workplace respect are way ahead of the curve ball and will experience more worker loyalty as a result.

INTERESTING WORK

Most people would prefer to be intellectually challenged at work than not. When it’s considered that a full-time employee will likely spend more waking hours at work than at home, it’s not hard to understand why she would rather her work doesn’t feel like a waste of time and talent. Pay matters, yes. But even the best pay can’t compensate for boring, mind-numbing work that provides no enjoyment and little mental stimulation.

AUTONOMY

Finally, jobs that offer greater freedom and choice in execution (i.e., empowerment) are associated with higher satisfaction levels. Micro-managing employees can be counter-productive, leading to excessive dependence on supervisors or turnover due to this oppressive management style.  Allowing employees the freedom to do a job the way they prefer, while achieving the desired results, allows them to grow in their job, problem solve, learn faster, and add value to their employer by focusing on results, not petty methods.