From the Recruitment Agency to the Workplace: What Gives Employees Job Satisfaction?

Job satisfaction and employee wellbeing = everybody wins? Just how essential is job satisfaction in the workplace…

As a leading online recruitment agency we feel it’s important to focus not only on client needs, but on candidate satisfaction during the recruitment process. Therefore when Undercover Recruiter published an infographic about job satisfaction for those already in a position, we were intrigued – what does happen when candidates leave the hands of the agency after the recruitment process? A survey in America focussing on employee well-being by sector and industry found out, and although the results aren’t directly representative of the UK population, they still give a feel of which employees are satisfied and why. The results are summarised below:

Which Industry is the Happiest?
If you’re working as a physician or teacher you’re in luck! In the survey involving 170,000 participants, teachers ranked themselves as extremely happy with their physical, emotional and financial health – coming second only to physicians in their ratings of these factors. One area where the teaching profession is dissatisfied though is with their workplace environment, in which they were cited as feeling emotionally disengaged – more specific details about this from the report itself are available online here.

What Factors Make a Successful Career?
It’s not all about money! For professionals, work-life balance is the most important thing for career success followed by money, autonomy and recognition.

What Exactly Gives Us Job Satisfaction?
When you’re browsing the online recruitment job boards looking for a new position, what are you ultimately looking for?

According to the survey, candidates want the opportunity to use their skills and abilities in their new position and add something of value. Also important are job security and the compensation package; less important are supervisor and management relationships, and communication.

So, How Important is Job Satisfaction?
Short answer – very, in fact the survey argues that it’s crucial. Satisfied employees offer businesses higher productivity, staff retention and loyalty, whilst satisfied employees can enjoy better performance and a decreased chance of burnout which, in a stressful modern society, can prove beneficial long term.

How Satisfied Are We?
Taking all the above into account – just how satisfied with our jobs are we? The highest margin (47%) came out as completely satisfied, 42% were revealed to be somewhat satisfied and just 11% were completely dissatisfied at work.

If you’re in that 11% and looking to change things around with a new position, RecruitmentRevolution.com are the online recruitment agency to help – contact us for more information either as a candidate or client.

Jamie Mistlin, RecruitmentRevolution.com – find me on Google+