What’s Important to Employees

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 theU.S.telephone population.

Job security	63%
Benefits	60%
Compensation/Pay	57%
Opportunityto 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%
By Todd Raphael, reprinted with permission from ERE.net