Highly-Paid Tech Employees Are Unhappy At Work

• Despite its reputation for promoting a happy work environment, the tech industry is falling short on worker satisfaction
• A new survey shows that IT workers are less happy about their jobs than the rest of the workforce
• Measuring, monitoring, and responding to employee feedback is one way that employers can improve employee satisfaction

It turns out that many highly-paid tech workers are less happy in their jobs than other members of the workforce. According to new data from TINYpulse, many software engineers, developers and other workers in the technology field that are driving the exciting modern world of innovation are not doing so with smiles on their faces.

The numbers
The survey involved 5,000 workers in the tech space and found a shocking amount of dissatisfaction among employees. According to the survey results, less than 20 percent of tech workers are satisfied with their jobs. In addition, less than 20 percent of workers feel that their companies strongly value them as employees.

Comparison to the rest of the workforce
In addition to feeling unsatisfied and under-appreciated, only 36 percent of tech workers surveyed indicated that they see a clear career path for themselves, while 50 percent of the rest of the workforce report a clear path forward. Less than half (47 percent) of IT employees rated their relationships with co-workers as a 9 or 10 on a scale of 1-10 compared to 56 percent of the general workforce that did so.

Finally, only 28 percent of IT workers clearly understand their company’s vision, mission and cultural values, well short of the 43 percent reported by other workers.

What can be done?
Forward thinking Silicon Valley companies like Apple Inc AAPL, Google Inc GOOGGOOGL and Facebook Inc FB have reputations for creating modern, progressive working environments for their employees. However, this recent survey shows that there may be some discontent brewing in unsuspecting places within the tech world.

According to Neal McNamara, communications manager at TINYpulse, employers can improve the work environment overnight by simply listening to employee feedback. “Being completely transparent allows you to explore hidden issues and enables you to fix those issues,” he told Benzinga.

TINYpulse’s platform is designed to measure and monitor employee feedback. The app sends out weekly surveys to company employees and provides anonymous feedback to management, allowing them to stay up-to-date on a company’s work environment.