Dive Brief:

• About one third of workers are unhappy with their paycheck, April 3 survey results from tech company Kizen suggest. Up from 19% the year before, 27% of survey-takers cited their wages as a source of workplace dissatisfaction.
• The number of respondents citing lack of flexibility as their source of workplace dissatisfaction more than tripled between 2022 and 2023 — from 9% to 33%. 
• Kizen researchers suggested the return-to-office is “stifling” flexibility. “Lack of flexibility was not in the top four last year and likely is up due to companies requiring employees to come in the office post-COVID,” researchers wrote when sharing their study with HR Dive.

Dive Insight:

Anecdotally and quantitatively, Kizen’s findings are on par with trends HR Dive has previously spotted. A March 2023 report from Executive Networks comes to mind, where the majority of survey takers said their organization is not making return-to-office worth the commute. 

Considering the resistant attitudes captured in the Kizen study, value added in returning to office should outweigh the value of freer, more flexible schedules, experts have suggested.

“[Employers] need to make coming to the office more purposeful and ‘commute-worthy,’” Jeanne Meister, Executive VP of Executive Networks said in a statement last month. “This will require employers to be clear on why and how working in the office can optimize collaboration and innovation.”