Whereas the present interval carries the load of the hi-tech sector’s continued decline and financial turbulence all through the nation, up till two years in the past Israelis have been fairly glad with their jobs, in response to a latest examine carried out by Taub Middle researcher Haim Bleikh, which has make clear job satisfaction tendencies amongst Israeli employees from 2002 to 2021.
This vital interval encompassed numerous financial challenges, together with the aftermath of the early 2000s recession, the worldwide financial disaster in 2008, and the unprecedented COVID pandemic.
The examine started with a baseline of excessive job satisfaction charges in 2002, as 83% of Israeli employees expressed satisfaction or excessive satisfaction with their jobs at first of the evaluation. This pattern was constant throughout numerous demographic teams, equivalent to gender, employment sort (self-employed or salaried), and public versus non-public sector positions, in addition to academic backgrounds. Between 2002 and 2019, job satisfaction charges elevated even additional, reaching a powerful 89%, with most of this rise occurring as much as 2011.
Surprisingly, the preliminary yr of the COVID pandemic, 2020, additionally witnessed an increase in job satisfaction, presumably influenced by components like job retention, return to work after unemployment, and receiving unemployment advantages throughout furloughs. Remarkably, the info from 2021 indicated a continuation of this pattern, with a notable enhance in job satisfaction amongst public sector staff (from 92% to 95%) and a slight lower among the many self-employed (from 94% to 92%).
Good work relationships are key
Among the many components affecting job satisfaction, office relations emerged as essentially the most influential, adopted intently by compensation. The examine centered on salaried employees aged 25 to 64, analyzing 4 key components: Compensation, office relations, job insecurity, and work-life stability. Office relations, encompassing interactions amongst colleagues and superiors, proved to be the first driver of job satisfaction, notably amongst girls, because the examine revealed that they often obtain extra help from supervisors and colleagues than their male counterparts.
The big significance of office relations holds particular significance contemplating the continued debate concerning distant and on-site work preparations in trendy workplaces.
“The practicalities of working from dwelling, which has widened because the pandemic, has many benefits — amongst them a contribution to general satisfaction with the work-life stability,” defined Bleikh. “Nonetheless, it additionally weakens the benefits of face-to-face encounters for employees and employers and sharpens the dilemma that many employers face in creating the right work-life stability within the workplace. Choices reached may have implications for the group, amongst them employee productiveness, loyalty to the corporate and group, apprenticeships {and professional} oversight, onboarding of recent employees, and protecting employees.”
Earnings, safety, and work-life stability
Work-life stability emerged as an important issue, contemplating the growing variety of girls within the workforce and the rise of dual-income households. Girls, particularly, confronted challenges in balancing work and household tasks. The examine discovered that organizational practices equivalent to versatile working hours and distant work considerably influenced work-life stability and job satisfaction.
The examine highlighted distinct gender variations in job satisfaction components. Job safety and development prospects have been extra essential for males’s job satisfaction, seemingly because of their conventional function as major wage-earners in households. All through the evaluation, emotions of job insecurity initially declined in Israel till 2019 however surged in 2020 throughout the pandemic, notably among the many self-employed. Fortuitously, in 2021, job safety ranges improved amongst staff and the self-employed, although some disparities persevered.
Relating to earnings and compensation, job satisfaction was considerably influenced by satisfaction with wages, together with extra advantages equivalent to persevering with training funds and trip days. Though earnings satisfaction confirmed an general upward pattern till 2019, it witnessed a considerable rise in 2020, probably attributable to the pandemic’s results. Nevertheless, in 2021, satisfaction with earnings barely decreased amongst staff however rose among the many self-employed. Notably, public sector staff skilled a pointy decline in earnings satisfaction, although it remained increased than pre-pandemic ranges.
The writer of the examine emphasised that compensation was not the only determinant of job satisfaction, as different components performed cumulative roles.
“Regardless of what most individuals suppose, wages should not the principal issue that determines job satisfaction.”
Haim Bleikh
“Regardless of what most individuals suppose, wages should not the principal issue that determines job satisfaction; reasonably, there’s a mixture of things that contribute to it. In all, compensation has much less of an affect on job satisfaction than the cumulative worth of the opposite components,” stated Bleikh.
Israel’s wage hole problem
In analyzing the connection between job satisfaction and earnings, Bleikh famous that “Since this issue is weaker amongst girls, it’s attainable that it is a issue that additionally impacts gender wage gaps in Israel, or that the hole is influenced by it.”
Regardless of a 2022 report from the Taub Middle claiming that the gender pay hole in Israel has been reducing lately, girls’s wages are nonetheless decrease than males’s on common, each month-to-month and hourly. This hole is especially vital when in comparison with different nations. In 2018, Israel had the second highest median wage hole amongst OECD nations, at 22.7%, between female and male full-time staff.
Relating to the hi-tech sector particularly, latest information from Israeli firm Compete exhibits that solely 3% of CEOs in Israel’s hi-tech business are girls, and the gender pay hole stands at 30%.
Talking at a girls’s wage equality convention final yr, the director of the ladies’s monetary independence group Ovrot v’Shovot, Yael Weiner, defined that so as to overcome the substantial gender hole, it’s essential to debate “what obstacles girls want to interrupt and what talents to undertake so as to place themselves increased on this planet of employment and demand equal pay.”
“We consider that monetary independence and safety in coping with cash is commonly the idea for independence typically,” she stated. “Each within the dwelling and on this planet of labor.”
