Reasons for Taking a New Job
When I started out. it was the money. Kind of hard to buy a house and have kids if together you are pulling in $24,000/year. Then when the family starts, one of us will not be working (that was the plan). Get the first job, change jobs at two years, and work your way up the ladder in salary and responsibility. We were getting comfortable when I was making double that at 5 years in supply chain. That and picking up a Masters. Later on, I added a few certifications also. Not looking so young helped. Differences in industry, job function, and contacts also helped.
Living through several recessions helped me in learning to survive. You would be su rprised what you will take as a job to get by.
“The Top Four Reasons for Taking a New Job,” GALLUP
Employees are watching for or actively seeking new job opportunities at the highest rate since 2015, with 51% exploring their options.
At the same time, employee satisfaction has hit a record low, contributing to what Gallup calls the “Great Detachment” — an era in which people feel increasingly disconnected from their employers.
What exactly are employees looking for in their next job?
Gallup’s nationally representative study of more than 10,000 U.S. employees identifies the four most important factors in choosing a new job:
- work-life balance and personal wellbeing
2. pay or benefits
3. stability and job security
4. a job that allows me to do what I do best
These factors have consistently topped a list of 14 job attributes for the past four years. The desire for greater work-life balance and wellbeing as well as better pay and benefits has increased in importance since the pandemic, taking the top two spots. Together, this set of priorities shows how employees define a better job today.
Organizations that align with these expectations will have a strong foundation for selling or reselling talented individuals on their workplace.
Breaking Down the Top Four Reasons for Taking a New Job
Greater Work-Life Balance and Better Personal Well-being
Amid record declines in employees’ life evaluations and mental health, the desire for greater work-life balance and personal wellbeing has been rated the most important factor for three consecutive years. The percentage of employees rating it as “very important” has increased from 53% pre-pandemic to 59% today, showing a shift in how people think about work and life.
Most employees no longer see work-life balance and wellbeing as perks — they expect them. Only one in five employees believe their organization cares about their wellbeing, and many seek jobs that prioritize it.
Significant Increase in Income or Benefits Package
Better pay and benefits remain a top concern, as the percentage of employees who rated it as very important rose from 41% pre-pandemic to 54% today. Fair compensation has long been essential for employee attraction and retention, but a wave of higher-paying job changes during the Great Resignation increased pay expectations.
In 2025, an uncertain economy may result in cautious spending and tightening budgets, leaving employers and job seekers with limited options for increasing compensation. So far, forecasts for salary budgets are mixed, with PayScale projecting a slight decline and Mercer predicting compensation will hold steady.
While competitive pay is important, it is not enough on its own to attract top talent — employees also want other meaningful job features.
Greater Stability and Job Security
The need for greater stability and job security remains a key factor in attracting talent. Fifty-four percent of employees rated it as very important, which is similar to past ratings.
As hiring slows and technological innovation continues to disrupt the nature of work, job seekers continue to place a premium on stability and security. Quickly evolving economic and workplace dynamics will likely keep this factor at the forefront of prospective employees’ minds as they evaluate future job opportunities.
A Job That Allows Me to Do What I Do Best
Currently, 48% of employees say this factor is very important. Employees are more engaged in their work, perform better and stay longer when their responsibilities align with their talents and passions.
Organizations that match candidates to roles based on their strengths and give them a preview of how their unique strengths will shine in a new role are more likely to gain a competitive advantage.
Adapting Strategies to Meet Employees’ Unique Needs
The top four reasons for taking a job are consistently important across the U.S. workforce and employee demographics like generation, gender and job level. Yet, it is important for organizations to consider the unique needs of their own workforce and different groups within it.
For example, contrary to popular belief, millennials — not Gen Z — are the most demanding generation when it comes to choosing a new job. Millennials place more importance on the top three factors for choosing a job — work-life balance, compensation and job stability — than any other generation.
Although all generations share the same top four job priorities, millennials’ elevated needs may look slightly different. Many are mid-career professionals with school-age children who would prioritize workplace flexibility and a steady income to support their families.
Gen Z employees, on the other hand, who are launching their careers, rate accelerates my professional development or career advancement as particularly important.
Organizations should also recognize differences by job role:
- Senior leaders value job autonomy more than managers or individual contributors (40% very important vs. 31% vs. 29%).
- Knowledge workers seek jobs that align with their strengths more than production/frontline workers (52% vs. 36%).
- Women are more likely than men to consider a job that allows them to leave a bad manager or leader (38% vs. 29%).
Ultimately, organizations that excel in talent recruitment and retention recognize that there are universal employee expectations that are important to everyone, while some groups have priorities that are particularly important to them.
Stability and job security were certainly high on my list when I took a tenure-track position. About a decade ago, I did apply for a non-tenured position and made it to the final stage before being declined.
A common complaint that people have about their job is that it is boring and dead-end. There were certainly some things that sucked about my job, but it was never boring.
Joel:
In 1980, I had a position with Parker-Hannifin in Des Plaines, Illinois. Five years after graduating with a BA in business and a minor in math. I had already worked with two other companies. I was chasing the money then. I found stability at Parker and was successful. The place ran like a clock and the complaints from all the facilities we provided diminished. They still whined . . .
My boss was a couch potato who came out of sales and could not plan his way out of a paper bag. As a small department of a half a dozen people, “we” made him look good. We kept our inventory at a proper level, worked with our supply base, and met plant/customer demand. I had women working for me who were under paid. Got them the higher increases they needed and it was still not enough to get them to where they should be. Planned inventory levels for purchased items.
The recession hit and demand started to decrease.
Put on my other hat and told my group, to start to cancel manufacturing orders. We had enough inventory. Doing such reduced purchased inventory and made the Purchasing Manager’s life far easier. The Divisional Controller (Bill Dold) came by and was talking with me. He thanked me for what I was doing. I asked, “why?” He told me; “for the 14 previous months the company had been profitable with the exception of two months where it broke even.” The result of which kept the company from spending funds.
We were in Fall then and my dumb-ass boss who never knew what we were doing, called me in. He wanted me to do something which I told him I could not do. In either case I would have ended up out the door. He told me, I would regret my decision. You can not regret whatever was going to happen anyway. I did not sacrifice my integrity then or over the years. I was laid off just before Christmas.
It was a tough time finding another position. I did do it and was still successful.
Those years were tough years and companies lost whatever loyalty they had for workers exempt and nonexempt. It has been that way since then for Labor, the lowest cost in manufacturing.
@Bill,
I was 32 years old when I started the tenure-track position I retired from last summer. Before that, I was in college for 4 years, grad school for 5 and a postdoc for 4.5 years. So a lot of opportunity cost to make up. I’m satisfied with the outcome.
A friend once observed that being in academia is like being a millionaire without the income. Great job, great colleagues, great facilities, great library. For me that was true. Yes, there were jerks, too, but I was able to avoid them.
“Work-life balance” Back in my consultant networking days (1990s) I used to attend a lot of these “work-life balance” conferences thinking maybe my specialty of shorter working time might find some traction. But not really. For the most part employers were interested in finding some kind of scheduling gimmick that would provide more work-life balance with out reducing the amount of time people worked. Compressed workweeks. Flexible scheduling. Things like that. And of course there were plenty of consultants more ambitious than I to accommodate such desires.
I came face to face with the conviction that output was directly correlated with hours worked and the more hours, the more output. Then I discovered that economists, who should know better incorporate “production functions” that make the same assumption. The actual neoclassical theory of the hours of labour (Sydney J. Chapman’s) and empirical evidence shows otherwise but that theory and evidence is “inconvenient” for modeling so it is unknown.
Wow . . . I did not expect to see you here.
This is some of the stuff I used to do in reality. There is so much that was done on a shop floor or in a warehouse that does not need to be done. If you create a system and process, manual labor can perform. My 100,000 square foot warehouse turned 22 times a year. I established it for them and they made it work. It was automotive and we were shipping globally. At Parker Hannifin Air and Fluid Cylinders, I finished up a stalled implementation of an MRP system. I owned warehouse too. Took a Distribution program and made it into a Master schedule for ordering as it had the plants inventory and demand on it. Our inventory followed the drop in demand in the early eighties when we had a recession. WE cut back and canceled orders. So much so, we were still profitable for 14 months and broke even for two months. This according to the Divisional Controller who asked me how I was doing such. In the end I was laid off with two weeks of severance after 4+ years.
It is not that hard, the guy in charge just has to know the flows and teach his planners. Not that they loved me. I made sure they got increases and thanked. So much of this is lost today. Thank you for commenting, Sandwichman. You paid me a nice compliment by doing so, I like reading of your work.
You know, I do very much welcome posts at Angry Bear. I will help you do it too.
Bill