Wayne, Pa. — April 12
The latest research conducted by the Kenexa Research Institute (KRI), a division of Kenexa (a provider of talent acquisition and retention solutions), suggests that U.S. employees have differing opinions when it comes to
satisfaction with their employer-offered benefit packages.

Based on recently compiled data from Kenexa’s database of employee survey results known as WorkTrends, as well as Kenexa’s normative databases, it appears that employee satisfaction with benefit offerings is largely predicated by the industry in which the employee works and the job function performed.

Industries that report a decline in employee benefit satisfaction include heavy manufacturing, wholesale/retail trade, health care products and pharmaceuticals, communications service/utilities, banking and to a lesser degree, education.

Industries demonstrating a rise in employee benefit satisfaction include health care services and financial services.

Overall, employee satisfaction with benefits in the light manufacturing, construction/engineering, food industry, wholesale/retail, government/public administration, transportation services and business services industries
showed only slight or no change over the past few years.

Not surprising is that the most volatile industries were electronics and computer manufacturing, given the unpredictability of the marketplace and the resulting “trickle-down” effect on compensation and benefits.

Actual job functions reporting the biggest decline in benefits satisfaction included first-line supervisors, clerical, service, crafts/skilled trades, operatives and laborers.

Those demonstrating the greatest gains in benefit satisfaction were managers and executives, and
those with generally slight or no change in benefits satisfaction included those in technical, sales or professional positions.

“It is interesting to note that employees who work in ‘best practices’ companies are noticeably more favorable in their satisfaction with their benefits and their responses tended to be more stable and congruent,” said Jack Wiley Kenexa Research Institute executive director.

As logic might dictate, salaried employees gave higher benefit satisfaction grades than hourly employees, and those employed in larger companies showed higher levels of satisfaction than those in smaller companies.

The more mature employee in terms of age showed
markedly higher levels of satisfaction than their Generation X co-workers.