Employee morale reaches all-time high amid inflation and recession concerns: CNBC|Momentive Workforce Survey
CNBC and Momentive’s Workforce Happiness Index increases to a score of 72 out of 100, one point higher than the previous survey’s index from May 2022
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., and SAN MATEO, CA, December 21, 2022 — CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, and Momentive, the maker of SurveyMonkey, today announced the results of their latest Workforce Survey.
The CNBC|Momentive survey found the majority of workers (72%) say morale among coworkers is either “excellent” or “good”, up three points from May 2022 (69%) and up from 64% year over year, and that morale has increased among nearly all workers, regardless of gender, race or job level. The number of workers who say they’ve seriously considered quitting their job in the last three months is also down slightly (36%) compared to the all-time high of 39% from May 2022, but still higher than any other previous iteration of the survey. More workers now (48%) than before say their company is adequately staffed, a 6-point increase from October 2021 (42%), and slightly fewer say their company is understaffed (45%, down from 50%).
The survey, which polled over 10,000 workers in the U.S. from November 28 – December 5, 2022, found that inflation and recession concerns are top of mind for workers heading into the new year. Seventy-four percent of workers say their company is prepared to handle a recession if one were to occur. On the other hand, two-thirds of workers (67%) say the biggest threat to their job is an economic downturn, up 7 points from June 2019 (60%), and fears of an economic downtown have increased among nearly all workers, regardless of race, income or industry.
Despite some recent layoffs at high-profile companies, most workers (59%) aren’t concerned that they or someone in their household will be laid off or lose their job in the next few months, including more than a quarter (26%) who aren’t concerned at all. Eighty percent of workers say they’d be able to find a new job in 6 months or less if they lost their current job.
However, the survey found that remote workers are less confident in their ability to find a new job quickly. According to the data, the less a person works in-office, the longer they expect it to take them to find a new job in the event of being laid off. Twenty-four percent of those working fully remotely say they could find a new job in less than 1 month if they lost their current job, compared with forty-one percent of fully in-office workers who say the same, while twenty-three percent of those working remotely say it could take more than 6 months to find a new job, versus sixteen percent of in-office workers.
Overall, the Workforce Happiness Index, which measures worker satisfaction across five key metrics, increased by one point to a score of 72 out of a possible 100, with a couple of the five index components experiencing a slightly positive shift since May of this year. The index continues to remain incredibly consistent, never moving higher than 73 from the May 2020 survey, or lower than 71.
Additional key findings from the December 2022 CNBC|Momentive Workforce Survey include:
All five components of the Workforce Happiness Index either held steady or saw improvement:
Even though layoff concerns are low, some workers are still worried about it:
Over and understaffing issues continue to pose attrition threats:
“We end the year on several high notes: workers are expressing their highest-ever ratings of morale, only modest fears of a recession, and widespread confidence that their business can survive any turbulence,” said Laura Wronski, director of research at Momentive. “There’s good news for bosses, too: most workers are not worried about losing their job, and fewer now than six months ago say they’re considering quitting, which indicates relief for the stomach-churning labor market of the last few years.”
To download the CNBC|Momentive Workforce Survey template to help measure employee job satisfaction at your organization, go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/cnbc-surveymonkey-workforce-survey-template.
CNBC Senior Personal Finance Correspondent Sharon Epperson will reveal the results of the CNBC|Momentive Workforce Survey on Wednesday, December 21st throughout CNBC’s Business Day programming. For more information on the survey including the full results and methodology and in-depth articles, go to: https://www.momentive.ai/en/blog/cnbc-workforce-survey-nov-2022/.
Methodology:
This Momentive online poll was conducted November 28 - December 5, 2022 among a national sample of 10,022 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.
About CNBC:
CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news, providing real-time financial market coverage, business content and general news consumed by more than 544 million people per month across all platforms. The network's 14 live hours a day of news programming in North America (weekdays from 5:00 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.
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About Momentive
Momentive (NASDAQ: MNTV), maker of SurveyMonkey, collects and analyzes human sentiment at scale. Momentive products, including SurveyMonkey, GetFeedback, and Momentive brand and market insights solutions, equip decision-makers at 345,000 organizations worldwide with the insights they need to make decisions with speed and confidence. Millions of users rely on Momentive to fuel market insights, brand insights, employee experience, customer experience, and product experience. Ultimately, the company’s vision is to broaden the world’s perspective to shape the future of business. Learn more at momentive.ai.
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