Is Job Satisfaction Getting Better or Worse? Results from Conference Board, Gallup, Microsoft and Qualtrics

On May 11th, 2023 the Wall Street Journal published an article stating “Workers Are Happier Than They’ve Been in Decades ”. The next day on May 12th, MIT Sloan Management Review published an article titled “With Burnout on the Rise, What Can Companies Do About It?” .?These articles seem to be in conflict with each other. What is going on with job satisfaction in 2023??Is it getting better, worse, or staying the same??To answer this question, I reviewed results of employee attitude surveys conducted by Conference Board and Microsoft that were referenced in these two articles respectively, along with surveys conducted by Gallup and Qualtrics.?Here is what I found.

A look at four independent employee attitude surveys.

Before discussing the survey results, I want to extend my appreciation to Conference Board, Gallup, Microsoft and Qualtrics for conducting these surveys and sharing their results with the general public. I have done survey research and know how much effort it requires.?So what are these studies telling us about job satisfaction in 2023?

Conference Board Job Satisfaction Survey is conducted annually in November as part of the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey. The report did not indicate the number of people included in the survey. The study found that 62% of US employees in 2022 are satisfied with their jobs, compared to 60% in 2021. These improvements appear to be driven largely by improvements in work-life balance, workload, and talent management methods. Another major source of improvement in job satisfaction came from employees changing jobs and employers. Job satisfaction of employees who changed jobs since 2020 are 3.6% higher than employees who stayed in the same job.?A few other findings include women having lower job satisfaction than men, and hybrid workers having higher job satisfaction than on-premise workers but also having a lower sense of job security.

Gallup Employee Engagement Survey is conducted quarterly asking samples of approximately 15,000 U.S. full- and part-time employees to respond to its Q12 engagement questions .?Gallup’s formula for calculating whether an employee is “engaged” has been questioned as being somewhat unrealistic , but their survey results are still quite informative. Gallup found engagement declined since hitting a high of 36% engaged in 2020 down to 32% in 2022. This drop appears to be driven largely by decreased clarity of work expectations, loss of connection to company purpose, limited opportunities to grow and fulfill one’s potential, and not feeling cared about at work.?Women, workers under the age of 35, and employees in project management roles saw larger declines in engagement compared to other employees. The very biggest declines in engagement were for employees in “remote-ready jobs who are currently working fully on-site”.?

Microsoft Work Trend Index is a series of surveys conducted on different topics multiple times a year.?Topics related to job satisfaction were included in the AI study which surveyed 31,000 full-time or self-employed workers across 31 markets in February/March of 2023, and the Hybrid Study which surveyed 20,006 knowledge workers across 11 countries in July/August of 2022. The 2022 study found that 87% of employees feel productive at work, but 48% of employees and 53% of managers feel burnt out.?The 2023 study found similar results with 64% of employees struggling to get enough time and energy to do their work, and 60% saying they do not have the right capabilities to get their work done.??

Qualtrics Employee Experience Trends is a series of studies examining how employees attitudes about work change over time.?The 2023 report is based on data collected in Q3 of 2022 from 28,808 full and part-time workers across 27 countries and 28 industries. Qualtrics saw a large decrease in employee satisfaction with pay and benefits, going from 67% satisfied in 2021 to 57% satisfied in 2022.?Satisfaction with technology also dropped substantially from 68% to 63%.?Smaller drops between 2021 and 2022 include Engagement declining from 67% to 66%, Wellbeing declining from 72% to 71%, and Work-life Balance declining from 73% to 71%.?38% of employees report being at risk of burn-out, with all categories of leaders suffering more burn-out (40% on average) compared to individual contributors (36%). ?Globally, Europe had the lowest engagement levels and South America had the highest.

What’s happening with job satisfaction in 2023?

The current situation might be characterized as “the job satisfaction dam is holding, but some troubling cracks are starting to appear”. Three of the four studies saw slight decreases in job satisfaction or engagement since they reached an all-time high in 2021.[i] ??Based on the Qualtrics study, satisfaction with pay and benefits is a significant area of concern, although employees might be glad to know that based on the Conference Board study changing jobs seems to be an excellent way to solve this concern.?The studies also suggest that many people are feeling burnt out due to the inability to keep up with workloads and shifting job demands.?Women, employees under the age of 35, and employees in managerial roles seem to be particularly at risk of burn-out.?It is also interesting that the most engaged employees are those working in hybrid roles. And the least engaged based on the Gallup data, are employees who could work remotely but are not allowed to due to company policies.???

One has to be careful with speculation, but I suspect the declining engagement levels and increased sense of burn-out could be due to growing economic concerns and business pressures associated with inflation and talk of potential recession. With the exception of Microsoft, all these surveys were conducted in the second half of 2022 so it will be interesting to see how things change given what has transpired economically in the first half of 2023.?The studies also provide a lot of positive news in terms of things companies can do that have been shown to protect and improve job satisfaction.?These include providing employees with clear goals and expectations, having transparent and effective talent management and compensation methods, supporting work-life balance, encouraging learning and development, and investing in technology to make employees more efficient and productive. ?All these are things companies should already be doing.?What these studies show is these things matter, and now is definitely not the time to stop doing them.?Companies would do well to keep this quote from the Conference Board study in mind when facing pressure to cut HR programs to save costs: ?“Many workers improved their satisfaction levels by switching to different employers better suited to their needs”.?

End notes

[i] There are theoretical differences between job satisfaction and engagement, but their correlation tends to be quite high in application, so they are treated as being somewhat interchangeable here.