U.S. Workers Report High Job Satisfaction Levels

Almost everyone gripes about work occasionally, but the vast majority of us are actually happy with our job and our employer, according to a recent survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Overall, certain key engagement factors are trending slightly downward from 2012, but those factors—which include the status of employees' relationships with colleagues and bosses, the opportunity they have to use their skills, and their feelings about the work they do—generally remain high. Meanwhile, pay and overall compensation has now emerged as the top job-satisfaction driver in SHRM's survey for the first time since the pre-recession days. That means organizations that have been keeping their salaries stagnant may need to reconsider their thinking if they want to retain high-performing employees. "Incomes have grown slowly since the recession, and that undoubtedly is having an impact on workers' priorities," says Evren Esen, director of SHRM's Survey Research Center. A total of 600 U.S. employees took part in the research.