Author: Jack Davies | August 30, 2018
Every quarter, we ask 5,000 employees around the world about their experiences at work — the results paint a varied picture with marked differences between the experiences of employees in different countries and different sectors. Here we take a look at how the experience differs for workers in different industries.
WHICH INDUSTRY HAS THE MOST SATISFIED WORKERS?
When we split our data by sector, looking at how satisfied people are in their current roles, we see a clear winner from the first half of 2018 — IT & Tech. Some 70% of IT & Tech workers say they are ‘somewhat’ or ‘extremely’ satisfied at work. This compares to a cross-sector average of 63%.
The clear loser when it comes to job satisfaction is the utilities sector – just 57% of workers said they were ‘somewhat’ or ‘extremely’ satisfied in their roles.
WHICH INDUSTRY HAS THE MOST MOTIVATED WORKERS?
One of the questions we always ask in our Employee Pulse survey is ‘When you wake up in the morning, how often do you look forward to going to work?’. It’s a question that focuses on the personal side of employee experience – it’s not about your employer or your manager, it’s about you.
Unsurprisingly, IT & Tech comes out on top again. 48% of employees in the sector ‘always’ or ‘nearly always’ look forward to going to work in the morning.
Meanwhile in utilities, just 40% say the same compared to the cross-sector average of 44%.
WHICH SECTORS HAVE THE BIGGEST ATTRITION?
So tech workers are the happiest, most motivated workers around – surely it would follow then that it’s a sector that doesn’t have a problem with attrition?
Not quite. When we asked people whether they’re likely to stay in their jobs for the next 2 years, 25% in IT & Tech said they ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ wouldn’t stay. That’s a huge difference compared to the average 17% across all the employees we surveyed.
HIGH ENGAGEMENT SCORES ARE GREAT – BUT THE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE IS RELATIVE
So what’s going on? IT & Tech has the happiest workers of all the sectors we looked at, but also the biggest issue with attrition. It’s clearly a great industry to work in, but the employee experience is always relative and, when it comes to the war for talent, it’s far more useful to look in-depth at your own industry.
When switching jobs, the majority of us tend to switch within the same sector, particularly in more technical industries like IT & Tech. So benchmarking your employee experience against other industries won’t necessarily provide all the insights you need.
Within a sector there’s going to be variance – there will be utility companies, for example, that fall below the already low average and those that sit way above it, and the same goes for other industries like IT & Tech. Being the company at the upper end of that scale is potentially the most important factor when it comes to attracting and retaining talent.
Benchmarking your employee experience against others in your own industry allows you to see how you compare to those most likely to lure your staff away. It helps you to identify the areas where you can improve to beat them to the best candidates and, when they become employees, retain them longer by providing a better experience than your competitors.
At Qualtrics, we’ve added one of the world’s largest benchmark databases to our Employee Experience platform, making it easy to compare your employee experience to your competitors. Based on data from over 200 countries with organizations in every industry, it gives you the tools you need to stand head and shoulders above your competitors to attract, retain and engage the best employees that will drive your business forward.
See how it works – book a demo today
