Hard expectations of employees in Europe

Employees from 16 European countries put better pay at the top of their expectations. This is especially true for people working in Poland, setting a European record in this regard. This is according to an analysis of employee responses to an open-ended question in surveys conducted over the past year by Great Place to Work®.

If you could change one thing in your company to make it a better place to work, what would it be?

This open-ended question always appears in Great Place to Work® surveys. Because the answer is optional, it can serve as a barometer of respondents' willingness to share their thoughts, and at the same time as a "detector" of topics that spontaneously come to mind.

In total, across 16 European countries—Austria, Denmark, France, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, Germany, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Italy—82,935 respondents answered this simple question, including 6,297 employees from Poland. Each employee had the chance to spontaneously express in their own words what quickly came to mind. The analysis covered responses from both employees at the narrow group of companies that made it onto the Best Workplaces lists and those that did not qualify for this unique distinction. So on the one hand we have a group of organizations with a high workplace culture, where employees trust their employers, and on the other, companies that aspire to be exceptional for their people and are still on the way to achieving that goal.

Pay-related issues accounted for an average of 18% of all responses, across all companies and all countries. And that was the number one topic. Interestingly, the pay topic was equally popular among people employed at companies recognized by Great Place to Work® and among employees of non-recognized companies (the difference was less than 1%).

Poland leads in dissatisfaction

Poland took first place in the statistics when the analysis covered all surveyed companies. The issue of pay appeared in 27% of responses given in Poland (9% more than the European average). Poland was followed by Ireland (25%), the United Kingdom (23%), and Turkey (23%). We also turned out to be the undisputed leader when it came to statistics on responses from employees of companies not recognized on the lists. In Poland, as many as 31% of employee responses concerned pay, followed by Turkey (24%), Ireland (23%), and Germany (21%). However, different results emerged from the analysis of responses from employees at recognized companies—that is, at Best Workplaces—where Ireland turned out to be the leader (with critical comments at 25%), followed by the United Kingdom (24%), and only then, tied, France and Poland (22%).

What lies behind the criticism?

What to do when Europeans want to earn more? Tips for employers

It is not surprising that in companies that did not make it onto the European Best Workplaces lists, the topic of pay appears as the most common in employees' free-form comments. What may be puzzling, however, is the popularity of this topic in comments from employees of standout companies included among the Best Workplaces. Yet a closer analysis of the content of employee comments shows that dissatisfaction with pay can mean many different things—dissatisfaction with: a lack of raises, the relationship between pay and the work performed, pay inequalities within the company, or the bonus system. In the case of Best Workplaces, dissatisfaction mainly concerned the bonus system, while in the case of other companies it concerned the lack of raises. In each case, it may ultimately come down to employees' perception of their own pay level.

Different rating levels

One might wonder whether the frequency of spontaneously expressed dissatisfaction with pay—18% for the European average, or even 31% for Poland in the case of companies not qualifying for recognition—is a lot. One might even conclude that most employees are probably satisfied. But that would be an unjustified conclusion, because the absence of a free-form comment about pay does not equal satisfaction. In the surveys conducted, employees were asked to respond to several dozen different issues, including the statement Employees receive fair pay for their work. In the case of 125 Best Workplaces in Europe, an average of 78% of employees gave a positive response (after all, 22% is still missing from 100%), and in the case of 29 Best Workplaces in Poland, the average percentage of such responses was 69%. It is also worth citing other data from Poland—in non-recognized companies, only 42% of employees rated their pay level positively, and in a nationwide survey, which is a separate study conducted annually in Poland and covering the broadest cross-section of companies, the percentage was 35%.

Where is pay fair?

Poland stands out above the European average, and as is often the case with averages, one can also point to the other end—that is, countries with greater "happiness." So if we refer to free-form comments from employees in Europe, for example when making possible decisions about economic emigration, it is worth choosing destinations such as the Netherlands or Norway, where only 7% of all surveyed employees mentioned pay in their free-form comments, and in non-recognized companies the percentage in both countries was only 5% (!). Interestingly, however, the rating of pay levels at recognized companies in those countries, expressed in the survey in response to the statement Employees receive fair pay for their work, was very close to the ratings of employees at Best Workplaces in Poland (Netherlands 72%, Norway 68%, Poland 69%). Apparently, employees in the Netherlands or Norway are more troubled by something other than pay, or perhaps the pay system is perceived in those countries as fairer.

Behind the Best Workplaces, where employees still have reservations about the pay they receive, there remains a long tail of non-recognized companies with less satisfied or outright dissatisfied employees. The reason for the intensified complaints of employees in Poland is probably the unsatisfactory level of pay for a huge number of people employed in the country, where the minimum wage is currently about 525 euros gross per month. It is known that the cost of living in Poland is different from that in the Netherlands or Norway, but no matter what measure we apply, it is not easy to survive on this minimum wage in Poland. Such injustices in the pay system as, for example, pay inequalities within a company can only deepen the resentment.

Summary

From the analysis of responses to the open-ended question in Great Place to Work® surveys in 16 European countries, it follows that pay is the most frequently raised topic—an average of 18% of all free-form comments. Poland is the leader in dissatisfaction: the issue of pay appeared in 27% of responses, and in non-recognized companies in as many as 31%.

Importantly, criticism of pay also applies to companies on the Best Workplaces lists—there, however, it mainly concerns the bonus system rather than the lack of raises. In Poland, only 69% of employees at such companies positively assess the fairness of pay, and with the minimum wage at about 525 euros gross, employees' resentment seems understandable.