Is your company meeting these 5 employee needs? (Featuring Adam Grant)

With shrinking budgets and competing demands, many companies have to make tough calls when it comes to investing in their employer brand. But where are the best places to spend your limited time and resources? Aside from salary and benefits, a Glassdoor site survey revealed the five key company attributes that matter most to employees¹: 

Let’s pull back the layers on why these specific areas are so vital to your employees’ well-being and your hiring success — with a little help from organizational psychologist and Chief Worklife Expert Adam Grant.

How worklife balance impacts employee retention

According to a 2024 Glassdoor-Harris poll, 48% of employees say it’s more difficult for them to prioritize their mental health at work now compared to five years ago. That figure rises to 64% for workers aged 18-34. 

“We already know that the most important form of flexibility is not about place — it’s about priorities and scheduling,” says Grant. “True commitment to worklife balance is giving people permission to take other priorities as seriously as their jobs.” 

When that doesn’t happen, burnout — a big retention killer — can rear its ugly head. Reviewers that mention burnout are 59% more likely to apply for a new job on Glassdoor after leaving their review². And employers are getting the message: In response to the need for more mental health resources, employers have been rapidly expanding access to mental health care coverage, making it the second largest increase of any benefit since 2019 (behind access to work-from-home options due to the pandemic)³. 

Why companies should heed the data on remote work

The debate between WFH and RTO has been raging for years, and neither side is backing down. 

Some employees prefer in-person collaboration and feel that being in an office helps their career. Others, especially working parents, find that working from home is vital to maintaining their worklife balance — and they’re willing to make sacrifices for it: 68% of workers in a recent Glassdoor community poll said they would pass on a promotion to continue working remotely.

For Grant, it’s all about the numbers, and he cautions employers not to make assumptions about people wasting time at home. “One of my biggest frustrations with both corporate and government policy is that people make choices based on opinion as opposed to based on evidence,” Grant told  CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

As both sides weigh their options, Glassdoor’s Lead Economist Daniel Zhao notes that remote and hybrid work arrangements should be viewed as a benefit. “And benefits,” he says, “are always on the negotiating table, just like salary or vacation days.”  

Why career growth and professional development matter

One of the standout traits at companies on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list is the opportunity for growth. Proven strategies — including mentorship and coaching initiatives, cross-departmental training, and soft skills development —  encourage workers to evolve with the company.

“Many organizations treat job descriptions as fixed, and they’re not,” Grant explained in a recent piece for Fortune. “When people were given a little bit of latitude to actually think about evolving what they did every day and not just what skills they had, six months later, they were happier at work without any cost to their performance.”

Opportunities for growth also shape the way an employee sees the company’s prospects. When employees feel stuck in their roles, they are more likely to view the company’s business outlook skeptically, which can reverberate throughout the employer brand.

What Glassdoor reviews reveal about leadership

In recent years,  emotional intelligence (EQ) has emerged as a key theme in Glassdoor reviews, with terms like “well-being” and “empathy” increasingly popping up when discussing leadership or management. 

This sentiment is echoed by Glassdoor’s inaugural Best-Led Companies list, where the most common traits among top leaders include: 

Grant doubles down on this notion, noting that the best leaders must be prepared to listen. “Strong leaders welcome dissent as an opportunity for growth,” he says. “They silence their egos to learn from their critics.” 

How company culture yields results

Workers are more productive when the vibes are good. 

“If you are a results-oriented company, and you bring in a relationship-oriented CEO, that CEO drives more value than if you had a fellow results-oriented leader,” Grant told “Squawk Box.” “It’s basically people-first versus performance or profits first.” 

In a survey of more than 2,000 workers across North America, 73% of respondents said they valued good company culture over money at work. Given that we spend 90,000 hours — or 10-18% of our lifetimes — on the job, it’s not surprising that how employees feel about their workplace directly affects how they work. 

Investing in employees boosts the bottom line 

“Caring about people,” says Grant, “is the best way to drive performance.” 

By prioritizing these five areas of workplace well-being, you’re not only supporting your employees, you’re building a strong employer brand that can serve as the foundation for a successful and sustainable business. 

For more insights from Chief Worklife Expert Adam Grant, follow him on Glassdoor.

¹ Source: Glassdoor.com U.S. Site Survey, Jan-June 2023
² Source: Glassdoor reviews from U.S. full-time & part-time employees in 2024, job applications started on Glassdoor in 30 days after review submitted
³ Source: Glassdoor benefits reviews from U.S. full-time employees, January 1, 2019-October 9, 2024