CNBC and SurveyMonkey Release Inaugural Quarterly @Work Survey and Workplace Happiness Index

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. and SAN MATEO, CA, April 2, 2019 – CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, and SurveyMonkey (Nasdaq: SVMK), a leading global survey software company, today announced the results of their first-ever @Work Survey and the first reading of the CNBC/SurveyMonkey Workplace Happiness Index. The survey is created as part of CNBC’s @Work franchise, which includes a three-part event series exploring the future of work.

Each quarter, CNBC and SurveyMonkey poll over 8,000 professionals aiming to measure how Americans feel about their jobs across five key categories – pay, opportunities for advancement, recognition, autonomy and meaning.

The first measure of the CNBC/SurveyMonkey Workplace Happiness Index is an optimistic 71 out of 100.

Key findings from the Q1 2019 CNBC/SurveyMonkey @Work Survey include:

• 85% of respondents say they are very or somewhat satisfied with their jobs. Despite the overall optimism, only 9% of workers gave top ratings across all 5 categories of the Workplace Happiness Index. Additionally, 27% say they are not well paid and 30% have seriously considered quitting their job in the last 3 months.

• Most workers say they are keeping up with technology and innovation in the workplace, but few are blazing new ground:

  • Barely a third of all workers see themselves as “ahead of the curve” on the technology front, a sense that craters among older workers. Overall, 60% say they are “about average” in their ability to keep up, while 7% get see themselves as falling behind.

  • 27% of workers say technology is threatening their job.

  • 71% of workers trust their direct supervisors to prepare them for changes in technology at work.

• Bosses who build trust have happier workers:

  • Fully 65% of employees who don’t trust their direct supervisors to provide them opportunities to advance their careers have considered quitting their jobs in the last 3 months.

  • On the other hand, just 17% of people who trust their supervisors “a lot” to advance their career have considered quitting.

• Women are less satisfied with their pay than men:

  • 76% of men say they are well paid, vs. 69% of women.

  • Additionally, the survey finds a smaller percentage of women in managerial, VP or c-level roles. Overall, 28% of report being managers or above, vs. 36% of men.

• When asked “what is the one change that would most improve your job satisfaction”:

  • 41% say “higher salary.”

  • 14% say more training or learning opportunities.

  • 18% of workers who admit to being “very well paid” still say a higher salary would most improve their job satisfaction.

“Our study clearly reveals that workplace happiness is richly nuanced. While a big majority of U.S. workers are at least somewhat satisfied with their jobs, there are a lot of negatives when it comes to how people relate to their work,” said Jon Cohen, SurveyMonkey’s chief research officer. “Whether it’s the fact that a quarter of all young workers doubt their contributions are valued, or that 40% of all workers don’t see clear opportunities ahead, shows that simple ‘up or down’ measurements of job satisfaction never tell the whole story. If companies want to hire and retain great employees, they need to open up feedback loops to get at the ‘why’—learning what makes people happy and productive. Only through engaging in conversations at scale can managers bring meaningful change to the way their employees experience work and the workplace.”

CNBC will present the results of the CNBC/SurveyMonkey @Work Survey today, Tuesday, April 2nd on-air, online and on-stage at “@Work Talent + HR” in New York City. Later, CNBC TV and digital will also feature the results. For more information on the survey including the full results and methodology and in-depth articles, go to: cnbc.com/work.

Methodology:

This SurveyMonkey online poll was conducted March 13-18, 2019 among a national sample of 8,664 workers in the United States. Respondents for this survey were selected from the more than 2 million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. The modeled error estimate for this survey is plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. Data have been weighted initially for age, race, sex, education, and geography using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States age 18 and over, then weighted for age, race, sex, education, employment status, and geography using Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey to reflect the demographic composition of United States employed population. Full results available here.

For more information contact:

CNBC
Jennifer Dauble
201-735-4721
jennifer.dauble@nbcuni.com

SurveyMonkey
Irina Efremova
415-860-9844
IrinaE@surveymonkey.com

About CNBC:

With CNBC in the U.S., CNBC in Asia Pacific, CNBC in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and CNBC World, CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage and business information to 410 million homes worldwide, including more than 90 million households in the United States and Canada. CNBC also provides daily business updates to 400 million households across China. The network's 15 live hours a day of business programming in North America (weekdays from 4:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of new reality programming, CNBC's highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.

CNBC Digital delivers more than 55 million U.S. multi-platform unique visitors each month. CNBC.com provides real-time financial market news and information to CNBC’s investor audience. CNBC Make It is a digital destination focused on making you smarter about how you earn, save and spend your money by zeroing in on careers, leadership, entrepreneurship and personal finance.

CNBC has a vast portfolio of digital products, offering CNBC content to a variety of platforms such as: CNBC.com; CNBC PRO, a premium service that provides in-depth access to Wall Street; a suite of CNBC mobile apps for iOS and Android devices; Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple Siri voice interfaces; and streaming services including Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Samsung Smart TVs. To learn more, visit https://www.cnbc.com/digital-products/.

Members of the media can receive more information about CNBC and its programming on the NBCUniversal Media Village Web site at http://www.nbcumv.com/programming/cnbc. For more information about NBCUniversal, please visit http://www.NBCUniversal.com.

About SurveyMonkey:

SurveyMonkey (NASDAQ: SVMK) is a leading global survey software company on a mission to power the curious. The company’s People Powered Data platform empowers over 17 million active users to measure and understand feedback from employees, customers, website and app users, and the market. SurveyMonkey’s enterprise solutions and integrations enable 98% of the Fortune 500 to solve daily challenges, from delivering better customer experiences to increasing employee retention. With SurveyMonkey, organizations around the world can transform feedback into business intelligence that drives growth and innovation.