Finance executives seem more satisfied with their jobs than most other workers, according to a new survey by human-capital consultancy Hudson.
Some 34 percent of accounting and finance workers reported being very satisfied with their compensation, compared with just 28 percent of all survey respondents. And 78 percent are very or somewhat satisfied with their jobs, compared with 72 percent for the survey population as a whole.
Reasons for the higher satisfaction, suggested Hudson, include that accounting and finance employees are more likely than the overall workforce to have received a raise within the last year (46 percent versus 41 percent) and more likely to receive quarterly performance reviews (15 percent versus 10 percent).
Hudson surveyed 10,000 workers during a two-week period in March; 873 were employed in the accounting and finance sector.
“The survey reveals a workforce with shifting compensation demands that can be hard for employers to decipher and even harder to satisfy,” said Peg Buchenroth, a managing director for Hudson’s parent company, Hudson Highland Group, in a statement. “Though cash is still king, workers are coming to grips with paycheck-squeezing realities like higher health-care costs and self-funded retirement programs. At the same time, they are placing much greater value on less tangible, lifestyle-oriented benefits.”
Survey respondents said that a flexible schedule was more important than family benefits, additional job training, or extra supplemental insurance. That was especially true for accounting and finance workers (39 percent) compared with the overall workforce (33 percent).