America may have a stress problem. While overall stress levels have declined over the last decade, a recent survey by the American Psychological Association shows some troubling trends: 3 in 10 Americans say their stress has increased in the past year and 20% of people reported experiencing levels of extreme stress. Money, work, and the economy continue to be the main culprits, though concerns about the political landscape and national security have become increasingly significant. Also troubling is that while vacation time has been shown to alleviate stress, 54% of workers ended 2016 with unused vacation days.
In honor of National Stress Awareness Day on November 1, Comparably asked employees across the technology industry to share their personal experiences with stress, burnout, work-life balance, and vacation time. The data, which comes from thousands of employees at small, mid-size, and large public and private tech companies, was collected between March 2016 and October 2017. (Full methodology below.)
The No. 1 source of employee stress is “unclear goals”
Forget the grueling commute, the long hours, and the coworker who doesn’t know when to stop talking. For most people, a lack of clear objectives is their biggest source of stress at work.
— Clarity is key. 42% of workers say having unclear goals is their top source of stress.
— Other stresses: The second-most popular responses were “commute” and “bad manager” (tied at 16%), followed by “difficult co-worker” (14%) and “too long hours% (12%).
— An across-the-board problem. “Unclear goals” was the most popular response across every gender, department and age group.
Sampling of responses by age:
18 to 25
31 to 35
51 to 55
Men vs. women:
Work burnout can happen at any age and experience level
It may seem logical that the older you are, the more likely you are to feel burnt-out at work. That’s not the case.
— Burnout and age aren’t correlated. Rates of burnout are nearly the same for employees of nearly every age, with 48%-50% of employees saying they feel burnt out at any given age.
— Retirement boost? The only group that deviated from the 48% to 50% range were employees 51 to 55, the group closest to retirement, who averaged a rate of 45%.
— Burnout affects entry-level workers the least, but just slightly. Forty-four percent of entry-level employees say they are burnt out. That’s only slightly lower than those with more experience.
— Women are more affected. 52% of women say they are burnt out at work compared with 47% of men. Women in marketing and business development reported the highest rates of burnout (59% and 56%, respectively; for men, employees in design showed the highest rates of burnout (54%).
People in legal, communications and customer support are least satisfied with their work-life balance
Work-life balance is becoming an increasing priority for employees, though many still haven’t achieved the level of balance they’d like.
— The worst work-life balance. Employees in legal, communications, and customer support were least likely to say that they are satisfied with their work-life balance (just 55%, 57%, and 58% report being satisfied).
— The best work-life balance. Workers in executive roles, HR, engineering, and product were the most satisfied, at 71-72%.
— Men are more satisfied. Men were slightly more content with their work-life balance than women (68% vs. 63%).
— Age appears disconnected. Employees of all ages generally reported satisfaction between 64% and 68%, with employees 18 to 25 at the lowest end of that range.
1 in 3 women say their bosses expect them to work during vacation
Vacation time is no longer an escape from the grind.
— No real time off. 33% of women and 26% of men say their bosses expect them to work while they’re on vacation. The rates are the same out of the tech industry.
— An industry snapshot: Employees in executive roles were most likely to say they’re expected by their boss to work on vacation, followed next by employees in communications and business development. Workers in engineering were least likely to feel expected to work on vacation, followed next by HR and sales workers.
— It doesn’t matter how experienced you are. Workers with more than 10 years of experience at a company are almost as likely as those with any other level of experience to say they have a boss who expects them to work on vacation.
— The older you are, the more likely you are to report having a boss who expects you work on vacation. Forty-one percent of employees aged 56 to 60 said their bosses expect them to work on vacation compared to 25% of employees aged 36 to 40.
1 in 5 tech employees has unlimited paid time off
Unlimited PTO has taken off in the tech sector, but not anywhere else.
— Still very much a tech thing: About 21% of workers in tech say they now have unlimited paid vacation and sick days. That’s significantly higher than workers outside of tech, 9% of whom say they have unlimited PTO.
— 20 to 30 days is still the most common arrangement: While unlimited PTO was nearly unheard of just a decade ago, it now appears to be almost as popular as the three weeks commonly offered by employers in the tech space. Remember that in the U.S. there is no federal mandate that people be paid for time not worked; it’s up to the employer.
— People in product and executive roles report unlimited PTO the most.
Executive (30%)
Product (27%)
— Employees in IT and legal reported the lowest rates of unlimited PTO.
IT (8%)
Legal (13%)
— 36% of employees in San Francisco claim to have unlimited PTO. San Francisco had the highest rates of tech workers who claim to have unlimited PTO, followed next by Salt Lake City.
San Francisco (36%)
Salt Lake City (28%)
— 7% of employees in Houston claim to have unlimited PTO: Houston, Dallas and Seattle had the lowest concentrations of workers who reported having unlimited PTO.
Houston (6%)
Dallas (10%)
Seattle (9%)
Employees rank vacation policy and flex time as the most important benefits
Vacation and flex time were the top benefits, excluding health care.
— When asked to rank the benefit most important to them after health care, people ranked vacation policy and flex time at the top, followed closely by 401(k) contribution.
— Women are more slightly more interested in vacation policy than men. Men ranked vacation policy, flex time, and 401(k) contribution equally, while women were more about vacation time.
— Level of importance depends very much on age: Workers aged 18 to 35 ranked vacation policy at the top; workers aged 36 to 45 ranked flex time at the top; and workers aged 46 and older ranked 401(k) contribution at the top.
— By department: Employees in every department ranked either vacation policy or flex time as their top priority, except workers in IT, legal, and sales, who ranked 401(k) contribution as their top priority.
Methodology
— Questions were in Yes/No, True/False, 1-10 scale, and multiple-choice format.
— Results are based on 88,315 responses from employees 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 15, 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
