Only Half of Employees are Satisfied with Their Career

While organizations manage planned reductions, there are key considerations to avoid a mass employee exodus

May 2, 2023

While most organizations know how critical it is to be closely aligned with the needs of their workforce during challenging economic times, a global survey by QuestionPro Workforce found that career development, recognition, and well-being are the greatest challenges companies face when delivering on their employee experience promise.

Amidst economic uncertainty and rising layoffs, employees report low satisfaction not only with their job, but overall wellbeing.

54% of workers are satisfied with where they are at in their career at the moment
57% feel that their contribution to the success of their organization is recognized
58% of workers are satisfied with their overall well-being

These sentiments directly correlate to whether an employee is proactively looking for a new job.

Employees who are the least satisfied with their career are more than two and a half times more likely to say they have been actively applying for new jobs
Employees who are the least satisfied with their wellbeing and those who feel their contributions go unrecognized were twice as likely to say they have been actively applying for new jobs

“The cultural impact of reducing staff and cutting costs elsewhere in an organization has significant ripple effects on the emotions of everyone in the company,” said Sanja Licina, Ph.D., president of QuestionPro Workforce and an organizational psychologist who is an expert on culture development and management. “Now more than ever it’s critical for managers to have and keep their fingers on the emotional pulse of team members to make sure they feel recognized and that there is a continued investment in their development. The cost of not doing so is the departure of valued team members.”

Women’s careers were impacted particularly hard during the pandemic, and the study showed that women continue to consistently rate both their wellbeing and career prospects worse than male counterparts. Specifically:

55% of women are satisfied with their overall wellbeing, compared to 61% of men
48% of women see a path to advance their career at their current company, compared to 56% of men
45% of women feel they could have constructive conversations with their manager about pay, compared to 52% of the men.

The study offers three key steps organizations can take to address the findings of the survey, including:

Check in on the workforce and ask how they are doing in areas that are the most important to the culture. The economy and the labor market has changed a lot in the last several months, and this has likely had an impact on the workforce even if a company hasn’t made any significant internal changes.
Review how the organization’s cultural strengths and opportunities impact key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, it may be that recognition has a smaller impact on productivity than career development inside your organization. This important data will hugely help managers prioritize the right initiatives inside the company.
Involve employees from various areas of the organization in different strategic initiatives. This will give an HR team additional bandwidth to make more improvements in a shorter amount of time, and will further show employees commitment to change though meaningful involvement.

The survey of 3,000 full-time employees from more than 30 different industries in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany was conducted in January, 2023. The full study is available for download at: https://www.questionpro.com/remarkable-employee-journey.html

QuestionPro Workforce, a division of QuestionPro, partners with organizations globally to help them create the best employee listening strategy. Coupling deep market expertise with a market-leading survey and analytics platform makes the company partners of choice for clients to help them build exceptional cultures and drive the best kind of organizational change. QuestionPro’s Empathy at Scale philosophy is paired with a full commitment to accompanying employers on their mission to make the world of work better.

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