In these hard times, saying that employees are not particularly happy at work might be restating the obvious. But for those of us who like to see the numbers, it’s nice to finally get that quantified.
In June of this year, Mercer published the results of its “What’s Working” survey in the report “Inside Employees’ Minds: Navigating the New Rules of Engagement.” And judging from what they had to say, the picture ain’t pretty: 1 in 3 employees is seriously considering leaving their organization. Employee engagement is down across the board. The one-fifth of employees who didn’t commit to staying or leaving were the least satisfied and least engaged of all. (It’s worth noting that was the first time Mercer had run the survey since the recession took hold in 2007)
But don’t despair. There were some bright spots.
Mercer looked at employee engagement in seven content areas: Pay, Benefits, Retirement, Career, Company (Management), Job and Life (Work-Life Balance). And when it comes to pay, the most important element of the employee value proposition, employees consistently cited improvements in performance management. For example, “I have clearly defined performance goals and objectives” and “My last performance review was helpful in identifying actions I could take to improve my performance.” (With retirement, the second-most important element of the employee value proposition, the results were understandably more mixed)
Another bright spot from Mercer’s report was the consistent improvements employees cited in career development. For example, “I am provided with the information and assistance I require to manage my career” and “My organization provides good opportunities for me to receive training to improve my employability.”
If you’re anything like me, you’re wondering how DePaul compares. While it’s true we don’t have Mercer data for DePaul, we do have the next-best thing, the results of DePaul’s own Total Rewards Survey, also run in 2010. In it, DePaul parsed benefits into seven different areas: Overall Benefits, Health & Welfare, 403(b) Retirement Plan, Tuition Benefits, Paid Time-Off Benefits, Work-Life Balance and Voluntary & Discounted Benefits. And there it is, right there in black and white: in every one of those seven different areas, satisfaction has increased – in many cases, increased substantially – since 2006.
You can download a PDF of Mercer’s report here, and you can find a PDF of DePaul’s Total Rewards Survey Results here.
Workplace Learning at DePaul 