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On the other hand, retail and commerce ranked the lowest among all industries, with an average score of just 60.10 out of 100.
Workplace satisfaction is more important than ever before for retaining employees, with one recent survey finding that 77% of workers were more likely to stay with an employer if they were satisfied with their company’s organisational culture.
TollFreeForwarding.com surveyed 200 companies across 10 industries and ranked them based on the following criteria:
- culture & values,
- diversity & inclusion,
- work-life balance,
- compensation,
- career opportunities, and
- senior management satisfaction.
Using these rankings, these industries were scored on a scale of 1 to 100 for each category, as well as an overall average. The construction industry came out on top, with an average score of 72.20 out of 100. Construction workers were also the most satisfied with their compensation (73.1) and the cultures and values (74.9) in their industry.
While this research is based in the US, HRO believes the findings remain relevant to our readers in Asia.
The findings are as follows:
Construction
Several factors likely contribute to construction’s high scores including skyrocketing wages, which have seen a more than 20% increase since 2021 across the country. Other contributing factors include increasing job opportunities across the sector, greater job security, and the availability of diverse roles.
Accounting & taxes
Following construction, the accounting & tax industry has the second-happiest employees, with an overall average of 71.92 out 100. Accounting & taxes scored the highest in several categories, including career opportunities (75.3) and senior management (69.6).
Manufacturing
The manufacturing industry came in third place, with an average score of 71.75 out of 100. Manufacturing scored the highest of all industries for diversity & inclusion, earning a score of 77.9 in the category. Other contributing factors to manufacturing employees’ happiness may include pay — entry–level manufacturing jobs usually pay $3 to $5 more than entry–level jobs in other industries. In addition, many manufacturing employees also receive robust employee benefits, which can help to explain their high scores.
Jason O’Brien, COO, TollFreeForwarding.com, said: “It’s clear that job satisfaction plays an important role in employee retention, and research shows that happy employees are more productive than those dissatisfied with their jobs.
“As our findings show, employee satisfaction is based on a variety of factors, from workplace culture and compensation to opportunities and management.
“Businesses that want to retain their employees need to focus on all these factors, as the top-ranking industries scored highly across the board,” he added.
The least happy industries
On the other hand, some industries fell under the “least happy” rank – tourism, legal, retail & e-commerce.
Retail & e-commerce
The retail and e-commerce industry has the unhappiest employees of any industry, earning an overall score of 60.1 out of 100. Several factors contribute to retail workers’ unhappiness at work, including notoriously low pay, inflexible hours, poor leadership, and lack of growth opportunities.
Legal
The legal industry is the second unhappiest of all industries, according to our findings, scoring an average score of 60.3. Legal scored a paltry score of 39.6 in the career opportunity category, which isn’t just the least for the category but the lowest score for any category.
Tourism
Tourism is the third unhappiest industry, with an overall average of 61.72 points. While the tourism industry scored poorly across the board, it also had the lowest score of any industry in the senior management category at 49.5. Reasons for low scores in the tourism industry include low pay and long, inflexible hours.
READ MORE: Attract, engage, retain: How HR leaders are overcoming the struggle of gaining top talent
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