June 2005

Compensation, work-life balance drives compensation

What makes employees happy? Nearly eight out of every ten employees are satisfied with their jobs and say benefits, compensation, and work-life balance are the most important factors to their overall job satisfaction, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Job Satisfaction Survey released.

Women and workers younger than 35 report work-life balance as the most important component to their overall job satisfaction. Men say that work-life balance is the fourth most important component to their overall job satisfaction and workers 56 years old or older do not rate work-life balance as one of their five most important components to their overall job satisfaction.

Some factors of job satisfaction are universal and consistent. Both employees and HR professionals note compensation and benefits are important to employee job satisfaction. However, HR professionals say that more important factors contribute to job satisfaction, such as relationships with immediate supervisors, management recognition of employee job performance, and communication between employees and senior management.

These factors have more to do with the organizational culture and working conditions in the company. Although employees did not rate these items high on their list, HR professionals know that when there are problems in these areas, employees note these factors as reasons for leaving.

Source: Society for Human Resource Management, www.shrm.org.

Industry News from:
Chiropractic News from: