CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, and SurveyMonkey (Nasdaq: SVMK), a leading global survey software company, today announced the results of their third quarterly @Work Survey. The survey is part of CNBC’s @Work franchise, which includes a three-part event series exploring the future of work.
Each quarter, coinciding with the @Work CNBC events, CNBC and SurveyMonkey poll over 8,000 professionals to measure how Americans feel about their jobs across five key categories–pay, opportunities for advancement, recognition, autonomy and meaning.
The latest CNBC/SurveyMonkey Workplace Happiness Index finds values matter in the workplace. Sixty-nine percent of working Americans say it is “very important” to work for a company with clearly stated values. Another 22% say it is “somewhat important.” And, many younger workers (respondents ages 18-34) say they have left a job in the past five years because their employer did something that was morally unacceptable to them.
Additionally, the latest measure of the Workplace Happiness Index is an optimistic 71 out of 100, unchanged for three straight quarters, since CNBC began recording the index in April 2019.
This quarter’s survey also found that workers are generally optimistic when it comes to the role of new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics in the workplace. Seventy-eight percent of respondents say they are “more hopeful” than fearful about changes coming from workplace technology in the next five years. And nearly half of respondents (48%) believe the quest to advance the field of Artificial Intelligence is important.
Additional key findings from the November 2019 CNBC/SurveyMonkey @Work Survey include:
- 85% of respondents say they are very or somewhat satisfied with their jobs, unchanged for three straight quarters.
- “Feeling work is meaningful” remains the most important factor in determining workplace happiness, with 35% of respondents noting it is the most important factor. 21% say “Being Paid Well” is the most important factor.
- 60% of respondents say Human Intelligence poses a greater threat to humanity than Artificial Intelligence.
- Nearly half of respondents (47%) believe computers will someday be able to tell right from wrong, just under the 51% who say they will not be able to tell right from wrong.
- 27% of respondents are “very worried” or “somewhat worried” that the job they have now will be eliminated in the next 5 years as a result of new technology, robots or AI. But 38% are “not worried at all.”
“Robots and artificial intelligence might be in our future, but workers today still highly value the human aspects of work,” said Jon Cohen, SurveyMonkey’s chief research officer. “Sixty-nine percent of workers say it’s ‘very important’ to work for a company with clearly stated values. Any company trying to differentiate itself in a competitive labor market should take note—creating meaning could be foundational to your success.”
CNBC will present the results of the CNBC/SurveyMonkey @Work Survey today, Monday, November 4th on-air, online and on-stage at “@Work People + Machines” in San Francisco, CA. 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 October 14-20, 2019 among a national sample of 8,155 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.