Friendly Co-Workers? Company Size? Female Boss? A New Nationwide Survey Reveals What Women Want in a Workplace

NEW YORK, May 30, 2019 (Newswire.com) - ​​Despite attempts of global brands to woo and keep highly skilled female employees, a new survey by Pollfish reveals women working at smaller companies report a happier work life than their counterparts at large corporations.

​The "Women's Happiness in the Workplace" study explored non-monetary happiness factors in the workplace and beyond in an attempt to discover the more nuanced factors affecting happiness and how each state ranked in overall happiness, according to working women. This research explored everything from friendly co-workers to the preference for a boss of the same gender to determine their impact on women in different parts of the U.S.

The study revealed that the number of employees at a company had an inverse relationship on the happiness of its workers.

Perhaps related to this finding, an overwhelming majority of women surveyed indicated flexibility to be the primary driver of happiness overall, with working women in over half of the U.S. choosing it as the "most important" factor in their workplace happiness. Roughly 60 percent of working women say that they have flexibility in exactly when they work and are much happier as a result. 

Short-term flexibility, including the ability to move things around in their schedules to accommodate their families, was determined to be the most important factor for women in 21 states, such as Virginia, South Carolina, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Illinois and Indiana. Longer-term flexibility was deemed the most important in another 10. Working women in only three states indicated that flexibility was not a priority, although women in those states reported being significantly less happy than those which prioritized flexibility. 

Another factor driving happiness was the ability to befriend co-workers. While only 55 percent of women surveyed report being friendly with co-workers outside of work, a majority of women in 18 states said being friendly with co-workers was the most important factor to their workplace happiness, including West Virginia, Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio, New York and Texas.

Women in eight states, including Iowa, Colorado and Wisconsin, felt just the opposite, saying that friendships with their co-workers was the least important factor in their happiness at work.

Lastly, having a female boss was not a significant driver of happiness for working women, with the exception of only one state — Connecticut — ranking it the most important to workplace happiness. 

"Everybody could use a larger paycheck. But our research shows that it is not the only motivating factor when going to work. We saw this survey as an opportunity to not only explore happiness factors from state to state, but also to spotlight what women most value in their workplace that could help businesses attract, retain and support female talent," said Michael Harbolt, vice president of marketing at Pollfish. "Nationwide surveys give us a great opportunity to get insights into the things that really matter to niche American audiences across a variety of lifestyles, demographics and locations."

In terms of ranking, North Dakota was ranked first in happiness of working women (with South Dakota ranking second), while Wyoming was ranked last (full ranked list attached). Working women in Florida and California are happier than working women in Kansas, West Virginia or Utah. And, Georgia, Illinois and Alabama are in the middle of the scale: working women in these states are close to the national median. Regionally, the Northeast had the lowest average ranking (35) and the Midwest had the highest average ranking (20). 

About this Survey

Pollfish released the results as part of its ongoing America vs America survey series that reaches a randomized and distributed audience of Americans throughout the country on key issues of interest. The "Women's Happiness in the Workplace" study was completed by approximately 20,000 Americans. When factoring in gender and employment status from the total population, the survey reached 4,759 working women in total. Working with PredictWise, a research consultancy, light analytics were applied to the raw data to ensure that estimates were representative of the U.S. census, with factors contributing to American happiness then isolated across states controlling for demographics.

About Pollfish

​Pollfish (www.pollfish.com) is an agile market research platform offering real-time responses from mobile consumers. Using a modern sampling methodology called Organic Sampling that merges mobile delivery, artificial intelligence and a massive audience network, Pollfish is able to narrowly target highly specific audience segments within their audience of over 650 million global respondents, spanning 160 countries and 24 languages, with better data quality and faster completion times than competitive survey solutions. Trusted by brands, media companies and agencies alike, Pollfish data has powered stories in almost every major news source in the U.S., including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox News and Inc. 

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact:

Michael Harbolt​
VP of Marketing
Pollfish Inc.
[email protected]
646-941-7655

Source: Pollfish