Less than a quarter of Wall Streeters are happy at work
That's according to a new study from TINYpulse, a company that collects data on employee satisfaction in the workplace. They collected 30,000 employee responses from 500 companies across the financial services and insurance industries.
Here's what they found:
Finance folk feel under-appreciated and under-recognized for their efforts.
Fully 80% of respondents said they felt "poorly to moderately valued" at work. When asked how well they are valued when they've done "great" work, only 21% gave a 9 or 10 out of 10.
Some of the survey responses are pretty telling:
"For the most part, I feel as if the perception of me is that I am a waste of cubicle space," wrote one respondee.
"I do great work all year, very rarely do I even get told I'm doing a good job. Come review time all is forgotten and I'm only reminded about a few things I could have done better. Maybe it's to make me grow, maybe it's because you know it'll keep me working hard to try to please someone, either way its depressing," said another.
They're unhappy with their bosses.
"I rarely meet with [my manager], and when I do, I am lucky to get more than 5 minutes," wrote one finance professional. "Even then I don't always have his full attention."
Less than half of industry folk (47%) are satisfied with their supervisors, and many of them share the same 3 grievances regarding their bosses:
They're poor communicators
They don't allocate time for employees
They don't care about employees' personal development
They don't like their colleagues.
While Wall Streeters are slightly happier with their coworkers than with their bosses, the number (56% satisfied) is still not very high. Still 46% of employees report being dissatisfied or indifferent with their colleagues.
And they had some pretty harsh things to say about each other:
"[My colleagues] seem to need a lot of hand holding and they are not taking responsibility of their own [projects]."
"The skillset is definitely NOT up to par for the changing technology and systems, the poor and negative attitude brings down the rest of the team, and that does not create a positive reflection of [our product] for our customers."
"[They are] full of attitudes and little accountability. Most want to push the buck onto someone else and start any conversation with a chip on their shoulder."
Their top grievances?
TINYpulse
So Wall Street is unhappy. But it's not because they don't have clear goals.
The one measurement where Wall Street did come out okay was in having clear goals and expectations. Asked if they felt their bosses had defined clear roles and responsibilities and the importance of each role, fully 85% of respondents said yes. And 87% said their managers set clear company goals.
But apparently, for finance pros, that's not what matters. And for the total 78% of employees who are generally unsatisfied or indifferent with their jobs, it is clearly not enough.