Friday, June 14, 2013

What's Important to YOU?

Yesterday's post over at Chemjobber's place really caught my attention. Paul Sturgeon, writing in trade mag Plastics News, opined that employers don't attract top talent due to fundamental misunderstandings in what "next-gen" employees really care about.

Made me wonder, if you asked some current science professionals about their top two workplace criteria, what would you get? Would Mr. Sturgeon be dismissed, or vindicated?

OK, readers, here's the game: Please list your top two workplace criteria in the Comments section. Once I get ~10 entries, I'll start to input them in a super-sciencey gizmo called a pie chart. Hopefully, we'll get a few more entrants, and I can start to pin down what's important (and what's really not).

I'll go first: My top two criteria are 1. interesting / meaningful work, and 2. length of commute.

Can't wait to see your responses!

(N.B. Certainly, a wide demographic visits chem blogs, but I'd argue the results will skew towards slightly younger, highly-educated, potentially job-seeking professionals. Exactly the demographic the above article argues companies wish to hire!)

37 comments:

  1. 1. Stability
    2. Type of work

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting/Meaningful
    No-Car Commute

    ReplyDelete
  3. location / maximum intellectual freedom

    ReplyDelete
  4. Enjoying workplace - too broad
    commute
    enough money
    quality of coworkers / management
    types/quality of problems to solve

    ReplyDelete
  5. Interesting/Meaningful
    Location - easy commute and an interesting locale

    ReplyDelete
  6. 1. Freedom for creativity and innovation
    2. Social value (my interpretation of meaningful)

    ReplyDelete
  7. 1. interesting work
    2. location - walking/biking/public transit available for commute and for living

    wow, that makes it so that i can only live in large cities near a body of water.

    ReplyDelete
  8. -Interesting and challenging work that is meaningful, i.e. knowing my work is making a contribution to the research goals and is work that is making me think, learn and improve my understanding/skills

    -High quality and caliber of colleagues (both management and coworkers-in terms of professionalism, hard working, diligence, possessing integrity, are respectful and able to communicate effectively at all levels)

    Of course sufficient money and short commute are nice but it is the first two points that allow me to roll out of bed Monday mornings with a spring in my step and eagerness to go to work.

    ReplyDelete
  9. 1 - Sense of teamwork and friendliness between colleagues
    2 - Interesting/busy work (every day being a little different)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1. Challenging & meaningful
      2. Non-repetitive (ie not always measuring the mass of something)

      Delete
  10. 1-Length of commute
    2-Cost of living in Area (house prices etc).

    ReplyDelete
  11. 1. Short commute
    2. Job stability

    ReplyDelete
  12. Decent pay
    Good Colleagues/Management

    ReplyDelete
  13. interesting/meaningful
    good coworkers/bosses

    ReplyDelete
  14. Interesting/meaningful work
    Ability to provide for myself and my family (combination of stability/good pay/cost of living/commute)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Interesting work
    Salary

    ReplyDelete
  16. 1. Location
    2. Feeling part of a team.

    ReplyDelete
  17. 1. A job.

    2. Collaborative/supportive work environment. Working with people who are so competitive they're always out to destroy you gets really old, really fast.

    ReplyDelete
  18. 1. Meaningful. (The work is meaningful/beneficial to society.)
    2. Intellectual freedom. (Management encourages employees to generate and pursue their own ideas at least part of the time.)

    ReplyDelete
  19. 1. Interesting/Meaningful
    2. Non-Repetitive (I worked as a lab tech for two years, and I could still do a combustion analysis with my eyes closed. I want to be doing something new and exciting to get me out of bed in the morning.)

    ReplyDelete
  20. I'll second what others said here:
    1. Interesting/meaningful work
    2. Ability to provide for myself and my family (combination of stability/good pay/cost of living/commute).
    3. Collaborative/supportive work environment. Working with people who are so competitive they're always out to destroy you gets really old, really fast.
    If I were to break out 2. I'd say
    2a: commute
    2b. pay
    2c. stability

    ReplyDelete
  21. 1. Academic freedom
    2. Interesting work
    3. (Relative) lack of bureaucracy/red tape...

    ReplyDelete
  22. 1. Funding/Resources
    2. Compentent management

    ReplyDelete
  23. 1. Resources (Funding, equipment, analytical staff)
    2. Location. Before grad school, this wouldn't have even been in my top ten, but never again will I work in the corn fields...

    ReplyDelete
  24. interesting work
    job stability

    ReplyDelete
  25. Its interesting how many put interesting/meaningful work at the top of the list. Hypothetically, how many would take a more interesting job for, say, 20% less pay? Or, put antoher way, how many would take a less interesting job for 20% more pay?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mine, by the way, would be

      1. stable, low-stress environment
      2. Interesting work

      Delete
    2. I bet there's a threshold effect on the pay. It's important to me that I make enough money to not be stressed out by lack of money. I am *ASSUMING* that this is a GIVEN for whatever I find with a Ph.D. in physics, but perhaps it is not.

      I also know that there are types of job (say, finance, even though that's dried up a little) that would pay big money and crush the life out of me.

      I can't imagine a situation in which I'd readily take a less interesting job for 20% more pay unless the reason why it's less interesting also means that it's enough less work to do something more interesting in my free time.

      I would probably take 20% lower pay for a more interesting/more satisfying job, but I think there's a floor on that. I don't feel that I can take 20% lower pay than my current postdoc for something more interesting than my postdoc (but that would be hard)

      Delete
  26. 1. interesting/meaningful
    2. Job security

    ReplyDelete
  27. 1 Intellectually stimulating
    2 Openness of colleagues/management

    ReplyDelete
  28. interesting work
    job security

    ReplyDelete
  29. 1. it pays the bills
    2. it doesn't require me to do anything illegal/immoral/dishonest/evil
    3. it doesn't break my back or give me a debilitating illness

    ReplyDelete
  30. 1) Interesting/meaningful work and 2) location. Not sure why the location matters so much when I spend my life in planes and crappy hotels. but it is nice to come back to a Pacific sunset.

    ReplyDelete
  31. 1. income
    2. meaningful work

    ReplyDelete
  32. 1. Interesting and meaningful job, one where you feel like a valued member of the team. An accomplished and experienced boss who not only empathizes with you but also shares some of your non-scientific intellectual interests can make a huge difference in my opinion (My current boss fits the bill superbly).
    2. Length of commute, definitely. My current workplace is only a mile from where I live (so I can walk to work or drive for 5 mins) and I generally view commutes longer than 30 mins as soul sucking contraptions crafted by satan.

    ReplyDelete