Work Flexibility Outstrips Pay as Top Priority

Home Is Where Workers’ Hearts Are: Flexibility that contributes to better work/life balance is the most important job factor for nearly one in three U.S. workers, supplanting even compensation as the top concern, Hudson says in a new survey. About 23 percent of employees still rank pay as the make-or-break item when considering jobs, but 29 percent want occupations that enable them to strike a better equilibrium between their professional and personal lives.

Hudson, a recruitment and talent consulting firm in New York, interviewed nearly 1,640 people. Also noteworthy is this anomalous finding: 66 percent say they got their present job through an active search, as opposed to being recruited by headhunters. That seems anomalous to other earlier research that suggests companies are recruiting more “incumbent” passive workers from their competitors--a condition precipitated by a dearth of qualified candidates being available in the nation’s labor pool.