Key Findings
- The most important drivers of employee satisfaction have not been changed by the pandemic, despite the continued evolution of work, with the three most important workplace factors for overall employee satisfaction in the U.S. being:
- The culture and values of the organization
- The quality of senior leadership; and
- Access to career opportunities within the organization.
- Work-life balance plays a larger role in driving employee satisfaction for frontline workers compared to office workers.
- A company’s business outlook has played a larger role in driving employee satisfaction in the post-pandemic era in 2023 as compared to the intra-pandemic period in 2021.
- The culture and values of the organization
- The quality of senior leadership; and
- Access to career opportunities within the organization.
The workplace has taken on a new shape in the U.S., from employees adapting to a new digital environment to frontline workers getting reacquainted with ‘business as usual’ in a post-pandemic era. While much has changed in the workplace, there exists a spark of familiarity when it comes to what drives overall job satisfaction.
Given that the COVID-19 smoke has nearly dissipated, we revisit the question of ‘what matters most to employees’ by examining Glassdoor’s unique database of millions of employee reviews across the U.S. for 2023 as of May 31, to find which workplace factors are the strongest predictors of employees’ overall job satisfaction (on a 1-to-5 star scale) and investigate how these drivers vary by industry and job type.
What We Did
We use a technique known as “Shapley value” regression to show which workplace factors have the most explanatory value in their relative contribution to overall employee satisfaction. The interpretation of each workplace factor share can be thought of as a slice from a “pie” in terms of the predictive power of overall employee satisfaction.
For example, “Culture and Values” receiving a larger share (or slice) than “Compensation and Benefits” does not necessarily mean that employees care more about company culture than being paid for their work. It could mean that the cross-company differences in workplace culture that employees experience daily plays a larger role in determining day-to-day job satisfaction than cross-company differences in salaries. This analysis shows which pieces of this “workplace factor” pie are most closely linked to overall employee satisfaction.
What are the Strongest Predictors of Employee Satisfaction?
Despite the turmoil employees and workplaces have experienced over the last three years, our research finds that the drivers of employee satisfaction have stayed fairly consistent, changing little from when we last did this analysis in 2021 and 2019. The figure below shows the drivers differentiating employee satisfaction, from the strongest predictor to the weakest predictor, have remained intact well into the post-pandemic era.
The top three drivers of employee satisfaction are culture and values (18.4 percent), senior leadership (17.6 percent) and career opportunities (15.8 percent). When combined, these three workplace factors explain the majority of what drives overall employee satisfaction (51.8 percent) and has remained relatively stable since the previous study (52.7 percent). While the rank order remains the same, there have been adjustments to the share of explanatory power among the other workplace factors driving employee satisfaction.
The share of contribution towards employee satisfaction coming from business outlook in 2021 rose from 13.0 percent to 13.8 percent in 2023. This rise in share largely came from a reduction in the contribution to employee satisfaction from culture and values (-0.7 percentage points) and senior leadership (-0.4 percentage points). As the labor market has softened over the last year and layoffs have captured headlines, employees are likely growing more concerned about job security, placing a higher emphasis on their employers’ business outlook and financial health.
It’s Not Just Work for Frontline Workers
The largest workplace factor difference for what drives employee satisfaction between frontline and office workers is work-life balance. For frontline workers, work-life balance explains 12.9 percent of overall employee satisfaction compared to office workers at 11.9 percent. Attempts to address burnout and work-related stress through hybrid work or more flexible working arrangements is much more difficult for frontline workers where hybrid work is less common. Additionally, staff shortages in 2023 for frontline workers have likely contributed to increased fatigue and burnout among employees. For employers, addressing work-life balance for frontline workers where hybrid work or flexible working arrangements are not possible is a critical challenge.
Frontline workers also attribute their overall job satisfaction to the business outlook of their company (12.7 percent) slightly more than office workers (at 12.3 percent). For those employees on the frontline, maintaining stable and secure employment through economic peaks and valleys likely contributes more to their overall job satisfaction and ensures they are not continuously seeking a new role.
What Drives Employee Satisfaction Across Industries?
Next, we look at how each industry (ranked A–Z) shapes up when it comes to the workplace factors contributing most to overall job satisfaction.
Factors Contributing to Overall Employee Satisfaction by Industry
| Sector | Culture and Values | Senior Leadership | Career Opportunities | Business Outlook | Work-Life Balance | Diversity and Inclusion | Compensation and Benefits |
| Aerospace & Defense | 19% | 18% | 17% | 12% | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Agriculture | 20% | 18% | 15% | 13% | 11% | 12% | 11% |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | 19% | 18% | 14% | 14% | 13% | 11% | 10% |
| Construction, Repair & Maintenance Services | 18% | 17% | 16% | 14% | 12% | 12% | 12% |
| Education | 19% | 18% | 15% | 15% | 13% | 11% | 9% |
| Energy, Mining & Utilities | 18% | 17% | 17% | 13% | 12% | 12% | 12% |
| Financial Services | 19% | 18% | 17% | 13% | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Government & Public Administration | 21% | 18% | 17% | 15% | 10% | 11% | 9% |
| Healthcare | 18% | 17% | 16% | 14% | 13% | 11% | 11% |
| Hotels and Travel | 18% | 17% | 15% | 14% | 13% | 12% | 11% |
| Human Resources & Staffing | 17% | 17% | 15% | 15% | 12% | 12% | 12% |
| Information Technology | 18% | 18% | 17% | 13% | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Insurance | 18% | 17% | 16% | 14% | 12% | 10% | 12% |
| Legal | 18% | 17% | 15% | 14% | 12% | 12% | 12% |
| Management & Consulting | 18% | 18% | 16% | 14% | 12% | 12% | 11% |
| Manufacturing | 19% | 17% | 17% | 13% | 12% | 11% | 11% |
| Media & Communication | 17% | 17% | 16% | 14% | 12% | 12% | 12% |
| Nonprofit & NGO | 19% | 18% | 15% | 15% | 12% | 11% | 10% |
| Personal Consumer Services | 17% | 18% | 15% | 14% | 13% | 11% | 12% |
| Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology | 19% | 18% | 17% | 12% | 12% | 11% | 10% |
| Real Estate | 18% | 18% | 16% | 13% | 12% | 12% | 11% |
| Restaurants & Food Service | 19% | 17% | 14% | 14% | 13% | 11% | 11% |
| Retail & Wholesale | 18% | 17% | 16% | 13% | 13% | 11% | 12% |
| Telecommunications | 19% | 17% | 17% | 13% | 12% | 11% | 12% |
| Transportation & Logistics | 18% | 17% | 16% | 14% | 12% | 11% | 12% |
| Overall | 18% | 18% | 16% | 14% | 12% | 11% | 11% |
Source: Glassdoor ratings from U.S. employees in 2023, as of May 31
Two major themes emerge from the cross-industry data presented above:
Senior leaders reinforce company culture. For most sectors, the quality of upper management is just as important as company culture in driving employee satisfaction. Senior management ratings’ similar contribution towards employee satisfaction across sectors signals the important role leaders play in driving company culture.
Compensation attracts, culture retains. Across all sectors, compensation and benefits play a relatively small role as a differentiator of employee satisfaction. But does this mean that employees don’t care about how much money they’re making or the benefits they receive at work? Absolutely not. This signals that differences in company workplace culture plays a larger role in determining day-to-day job satisfaction than differences in salaries. While compensation and benefits may attract employees to a job, a company’s culture retains them.
Tips for Employers
The drivers of employee satisfaction have remained intact despite the continual changes in where employees work, how employees work and who they decide to work for. So what does this mean for employers? Below we highlight a few tips on how to take action from the above findings.
- Knowing where you stand. Analyzing your company ratings will equip you with the necessary insights to address each workplace factor separately. For example, the above findings show that a company’s business outlook has played a larger role in day-to-day employee satisfaction in today’s post-pandemic era. Keeping employees in the loop on how the company is meeting their performance goals can help ensure that – regardless of whether business is booming or not – employees feel more secure in the decisions being made.
- Keeping up with evolving workplace culture. While culture and values continue to be the top workplace driver for overall employee satisfaction, many workplaces look different today than they did three years ago. Trying to establish elements of continuity as the workplace evolves, such as continuing to sponsor social events whether in person or virtually, will help boost employee satisfaction.
- Check-in with your employees. When in doubt, continue to solicit feedback from your employees. This on-the-ground view will allow for a more tailored approach in addressing employee needs that may have been overlooked.
Conclusion
In this analysis, using Glassdoor’s global database of employee reviews, we revisited the topic of which workplace factors matter most to employee satisfaction. We find that despite the disruption to the workplace over the past three years, the same three workplace factors remain a top priority for employees and differentiate employers: culture and values, senior leadership and career opportunities.
When comparing frontline versus office workers, we find that work-life balance holds a greater share of explanatory power for overall job satisfaction for frontline employees. Breaking out by industry, we find that for most sectors the quality of upper management is just as important as company culture in driving employee satisfaction and that while compensation and benefits play a relatively small differentiating role in driving employee satisfaction this does not necessarily mean that employees don’t care about how much money they’re making or the benefits they receive at work. Overall, the workplace is changing yet employees remain tethered to a core set of workplace factors that can make or break their overall experience at work.