Boosting Employee Happiness | 5 Things Employees Value Above Salary
While many believe that employee happiness is linked to salary – that’s actually not the case. Read on for 5 things employees value more than their salary.
What’s important to employees? A lot more than just their paychecks. As it turns out, salary has less to do with employee happiness than you may think.
“Money isn’t the driver of job satisfaction,” says Shawna Clark, founder and executive coach at Clark Executive Coaching. Clark, who has over 20 years of experience working in human resources, says that employees value other things – things that drive employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention.
And there are several recent studies showing that while money is important to employees and job candidates – it isn’t necessarily the most important thing when it comes to employee happiness.
Here are five things that today’s employees and job candidates look for in a job — other than money. Please note this list is in no particular order.
#1 – Company Culture and Mission
“People are looking for a healthy culture with values that are aligned to their own,” says Clark.
Staffing provider, LaSalle Network, surveyed 6,000 recent college graduates about the most important factors they consider when evaluating a company to work for. And while 69% ranked compensation as the number one factor, a surprising 61% listed company culture as the second most important factor.
According to a Harvard Business Report article by Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at jobs and recruiting site GlassDoor, the culture and values of an organization take the top spot as a predictor of job satisfaction repeatedly in Glass Door reviews and surveys – regardless of income level.
In the article, Chamberlain suggests that once you determine fair pay for a role, you’ll improve your odds of attracting the best talent and keeping the great talent you already have by promoting and refining “positive culture and values” within your business.
#2 – Approachable Leadership
Another important job aspect is the approachability of company or team leadership. Not only does this refer to the top positions, but an employee’s immediate supervisor.
Approachable leadership allows and even encourages employees to talk with their managers about everything from work issues to future career plans.
“People leave or stay for their managers, not jobs or companies,” says Clark. This idea matches the Gallup report, How Millennials Want to Work and Live, which found that the 61% of millennial workers who feel they can talk to their managers about anything expect to still be with their employers one year from now.
Phillip Wilson, president and general counsel of HR consulting firm Labor Relations Institute Inc. agrees that leader approachability is critical to employee happiness.
“Our research finds that this one factor alone is correlated to 89% of employee satisfaction, 88% of willingness to go above and beyond at work, and a 71% decrease in turnover intention,” he says. Yet if an employee feels that their managers aren’t willing to listen, they’ll look for a job with a manager who will.
“Employees leave managers, not companies,” says Wilson.
Related: Harmful Micromanagement: How to Switch to an Autonomous Workplace
#3 – Opportunity to Grow in the Workplace
Employees today also value the opportunity to develop and grow – maybe even beyond the role they were hired for. This is especially true of millennials, as shown by a number of studies.
According to the Gallup report, 87 percent of respondents said development opportunities are an important job feature. Additionally, the LaSalle survey found that 71 percent of respondents said opportunity for growth was the number one factor when considering a new role. And Pew Research Center’s 2016 Report on The State of American Jobs states that 87 percent of workers believe they’ll need additional training and skills to keep up with current and future changing technology in the workplace.
In evaluating professional development offerings and opportunities to grow, employees may look for employer-offered online training or onsite workshops, and company support as they pursue additional work-related education.
“People feel valued and rewarded when their company makes an investment in their growth,” says Clark.
Related: An Over 30s Guide to Recruiting Millennials
#4 – Flexibility for Balancing Work and Life
Flexibility at work for balancing professional and personal lives is another key feature today’s employees value above salary.
Although people of all ages and life stages may value the option to work a compressed four-day work week, an earlier or later start date, or the opportunity to work remotely, it’s particularly important to parents.
In fact, a survey by the popular online job board FlexJobs found that 84% of working parents said work flexibility is the number one most important factor in a job, with work-life balance a close second at 80%. Furthermore, 50% of the LaSalle survey respondents said work-life balance ranked third in order of importance when considering factors of a new role.
Related Content: How Mobile is Transforming the Workplace
#5 – Recognition
It’s natural for an individual to want recognition for an outstanding performance, and within the workplace, this can be even more valuable.
“People desire appreciation for the personal value they bring,” says Clark. In fact, a 2016 Gallup analysis found that this desire is so strong, workers are twice as likely to quit within the next year if they feel their work hasn’t been recognized.
Vincent Nero, VP and general manager of online rewards and recognition business Successories.com, believes that recognition is the number one thing employees crave.
“Outside of performance awards, which continues to show a huge bump in employee happiness and engagement, years of service or anniversary awards make employees feel valued,” says Nero. “Our studies have shown that companies with years of service awards retain employees an average of two years longer than companies that don’t.”
As with several of the other things employees value over money, Nero says that recognition has an “amazing ROI” compared to doling out bonuses and salary increases.
“Our partners and surveys have continuously reported that money is easy but ineffective at delivering engagement, productivity, and retention,” says Nero. “An employee might say they want more money, but what they need is to be recognized.”
Although money is still a significant factor when it comes to a job, it simply doesn’t compensate for an unhappy work environment.
This post was originally published July 6, 2017 and has since been updated.
