2009 SHRM Annual Conference Blog

The Society for Human Resource Management released its two annual surveys - the Employee Benefits Survey and Job Satisfaction Survey - at its Annual Conference in New Orleans today.

According to the 2009 Job Satisfaction Survey, 58% of employees  report the current economy has no effect on their overall job satisfaction.

Employees rank the top five aspects of job satisfaction as:

1. job security (63 percent);
2. benefits (60 percent);
3. compensation/ pay (57 percent);
4. opportunities to use skills and abilities (55 percent);
5. and feeling safe in the work environment (54 percent).

HR professionals rank the top five very important job satisfaction aspects for employees as:

1. job security and the relationship with the immediate supervisor (72 percent);
2. benefits (69 percent);
3. communication between employees and senior management (66 percent);
4. opportunities to use skills and abilities (62 percent);
5. and management recognition of employee job performance (61 percent).

 Other key findings in SHRM’s 2009 Job Satisfaction Survey include:

• Employees view health care and medical benefits (64 percent) as more valuable than paid time off (58 percent), defined contribution plans (41 percent), defined benefit pension plans (39 percent), and family-friendly benefits (29 percent).
• Employees with longer tenure at organizations rank benefits, such as defined contribution plans and defined benefit pension plans, as more important to job satisfaction than do employees with shorter tenure.
• More females report paid time off, the relationship with the immediate boss and co-workers, and flexibility to balance work and life issues as being important to job satisfaction than men do.

SHRM 2009 Employee Benefits Survey Report found that 60% of HR professionals say the recession has caused their organizations to scale back or hold steady on benefit offerings.

Benefits that fewer organizations are offering include: housing and relocation assistance, business travel, elder care referral services and adoption assistance.

Key findings from the survey include:

·         Organizations continue to offer family-friendly benefits for same-sex and opposite-sex domestic partners. Overall, 16 percent of HR professionals reported that their company offers some form of domestic partner benefits beyond health care. Specifically, 14 percent offer family-friendly benefits to same-sex partners and 14 percent extend the same to opposite-sex partners. For health care, 37 percent of organizations offer the benefit to opposite-sex domestic partners and 36 percent offer it to same-sex domestic partners.

·         Organizations recognize the critical importance of financial and compensation benefits. A financial literacy program benefit debuted on the 2009 survey with 12 percent of surveyed companies offering it. Also, more companies offered a defined contribution retirement plan benefit in 2009 (90 percent) than 2008 (84 percent). Notably, HR professionals reported fewer organizations offering the executive retention bonus benefit in 2009 (11 percent) than 2008 (17 percent).

·         Overall, health care and welfare benefits declined slightly in 2009 though more companies are offering mental health coverage benefits in 2009 than 2008.  Seventy-five percent of HR professionals said their organizations offered the benefit last year compared to 80 percent this year. Mental health coverage was the only benefit in this category to be offered by more organizations in 2009 than 2008.

To read the SHRM surveys, please visit: http://www.shrm.org/Research/SurveyFindings/Pages/default.aspx.