A company’s values should underpin every aspect of the business. They should be seen in the way the organization hires and promotes, serves internal and external customers, delivers feedback, and motivates employees to produce good work. Together, those values help create company culture, one of the key factors in talent attraction and retention.
Unfortunately, many companies fail to live and breathe the positive, caring values they claim to have. Hoping to get a sense of how closely companies are standing by their culture and values, Comparably asked thousands of workers to share feedback on their own employers. The data, which comes from employees at small, mid-size, and large public and private companies, predominantly in tech, was collected between March 2016 and October 2017.
Respondents were asked:
— Which of the following set of company values is most meaningful to you?
— What do you think would most improve office cultures across different companies?
— Does your current employer focus on improving your company culture?
— Does your boss hurt company culture?
— Do company leaders do what they should to retain you as an employee?
— Is your company invested in your career growth?
— Does your manager seem to care about you as a person?
Check out the highlights and full methodology below.
Transparency and integrity are No. 1 company values
When asked to choose the most important set of company values, most employees chose “transparency and integrity.”
— Transparency, then teamwork. 37% of people chose “transparency and integrity,” followed next by “teamwork and winning” (24%). “Fun and passion” came in at No. 3 (18%), followed by “speed and innovation” (13%), and last by “diversity and inclusion” (7%).
— Men and women were almost identical in their responses. The order of their ranking was the same, though men valued speed and innovation slightly more than women and women valued diversity and inclusion slightly more than men.
— African Americans valued “diversity and inclusion” at a higher percentage than any other ethnic group (11%). They were also the only ethnic group to rank “teamwork and winning” as No. 1.
— The youngest employees ranked “teamwork and winning” first. 30% of employees 18 to 25 said “teamwork and winning” was most important; that was the highest in any age group.
The key to better company culture = better leadership
33% of employees say “better leaders” would most improve office culture across different companies.
— “Better leaders” ranks No. 1. 33% of workers say “better leaders” would have the biggest positive impact on company culture overall, followed closely by “more communication” (30%). “More transparency” (22%) and “more diverse employees” (9%) were the next most popular responses.
— Stricter HR policies at the bottom. Just 6% of employees felt that having stricter HR policies would improve company culture.
— Men favor better leaders; women favor more communication. The differences in how men and women ranked their answers was noticeable. 35% of men chose “better leaders,” making it the No. 1 response for them, while 33% of women chose “more communication.”
— Priorities change with experience. Workers with 6 years or more experience favored “better leaders” while workers with less than 6 years’ experience favored “more communication.”
63% of workers say their employers are focused on improving culture
Company culture is a key method in retaining and maintain employees.
— Men and women are aligned. 63% of men and 64% of men say their employers are focused on improving company culture.
— Breakdown by diversity. 73% of workers who identify as “other” say their employers are focused on improving company culture, compared to 60% of those who identify as Asian/Pacific Islander.
— Workers with doctorates appear to have the most positive view of their employers’ attention to culture. 72% of them say their employer is focused on improving culture compared to 56% of those with a high school diploma.
1 in 3 people says their boss hurts company culture
Company culture starts at the top, for better or for worse.
— Women are slightly more likely to say their boss negatively impacts company culture. 35% of women say their boss hurts company culture vs. 32% of men.
— Middle-aged employees report the highest levels of saying their boss hurts company culture. 38% of workers 41 to 45 say they have a boss who hurts company culture. That was the highest level of any age group. The range was 32% to 38%.
By and large, companies aren’t doing what they need to do for retention
Less than half of workers say their employers are doing what they should in order to retain them.
— Just 44% of people are pleased with their employer’s efforts to retain them.
— Satisfaction declines with age. The youngest set of workers had an almost 50% rate of saying they are pleased with their employer’s retention efforts. The rate declined from there, hitting a low of 37% among 51 to 55-year-olds.
— Dissatisfied across the board. At 57% and 47%, African Americans and Hispanic/Latino employees are most satisfied with their employers’ efforts to keep them on board, but just barely.
Just 45% of employees say their firms are invested in their career growth
A key factor in retention is feeling that your company is pushing you to the next level. That’s not happening often enough.
— Women are slightly less inclined to say their employers are invested in their career growth. (43% of women vs. 47% of men)
— African Americans reported the highest rates of feeling their employer supports their career growth. Responses were relatively close across the board.
Most people say their managers care about them as people
71% of workers say their managers see them as people, getting to know their interests and needs.
— Women are slightly less inclined to say their managers see them as people (69% vs 73%).
— Workers in their 30s have the highest opinion of their managers. They report the highest levels of saying that their managers see them as people.
— Workers at the beginning and ends of their careers tend to report the lowest rates of saying their managers see them as people.
Methodology
— Questions were in Yes/No, True/False, 1-10 scale, and multiple-choice format.
— Results are based on more than 38,000 responses from workers, predominantly across the technology sector.
— Employees hail from small, mid-size, and large tech companies (VC-funded, privately-held, and public) to household brands like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, etc.
— Data was collected between March 30, 2016 and October 31, 2017.
About Comparably
Comparably is one of the fastest growing compensation, culture, and career monitoring sites in the U.S. With a mission to make work dramatically more transparent and rewarding, it is the only platform with comprehensive and structured data that can be segmented by gender, ethnicity, age, location, tenure, company size, equity, title/department, and education. Since the Santa Monica-based startup’s launch in March 2016, the site has become a popular resource for employees to anonymously input and compare salaries, rate their workplace culture and CEOs, and have their dream jobs find them. With more than 1 million ratings and hundreds of thousands of salary and culture data, over 3,000 companies are now using Comparably’s employer branding and jobs tools to recruit talent. For more information, please visit www.comparably.com
