Popular culture likes to think that everyone has a price. According to new research, that price is approximately $15,000 a year. That’s right. The data seems to indicated that a $15,000 annual salary bump will get even your most loyal employee to jump ship.
A new survey found that while 87 percent of Americans like their jobs, 41 percent would leave them to do something they hate. The average desired salary for a despised job? $77,000.
Although 74 percent of millennials polled said that passion is the biggest factor in their job choice, 83 percent believe that they do or will have to stop doing what they love in order to make enough money.
The new survey, conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Self Lender, found that men are more likely than women to trade passion for higher salaries, with 48 percent of men willing to take a pay increase to perform a job they dislike versus 36 percent of women.
The new study of 2,000 Americans has uncovered that salary, benefit packages, and working hours are the three aspects of work that respondents feel need the most improvement. More than half (54 percent) of Americans feel that their current salary is unfairly low. Less than half of respondents (49 percent) believe they’ll have enough money to retire at a reasonable age.
Benefits May Help Retain
According to data collected by American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), one-third of workers plan to switch jobs in 2019. When workers look for new opportunities they often overvalue the benefits offered.
“A robust benefits package is often a large chunk of total compensation, but it’s the employees’ job to make sure they’re taking advantage of it to improve their financial positions and quality of life,” said Greg Anton, CPA, chairman of the AICPA’s National CPA Financial Literacy Commission. “Beyond the dollar value of having good benefits, employees gain peace of mind knowing that if they can take a vacation without losing a week’s pay or if they need to see a doctor, they won’t be responsible for the entire cost.”
When asked which three workplace benefits would help them reach their financial goals, more than half of Americans cited 401(k) match (56 percent) or health insurance (56 percent), while around a third cited paid time off (33 percent) or a pension (31 percent). Additionally, about 1 in 5 (21 percent) cited flexible working hours, and fifteen percent cited working remotely.
