In the competition for the best people in the office, there is a lot for companies to do. A quarter of those working in offices have a whole range of points of criticism. Among other things, not enough money and the superiors cause frustration.

According to a survey, almost every fourth office worker in Germany is dissatisfied with his job. In a survey commissioned by the technology company Slack, 23 percent said so. 6 percent have concrete intentions to change.

If you ask all employees what could bring them to a job change, the most common answer is a lack of pay (82 percent). This is followed by an unhealthy work-life balance with 74 percent and dissatisfaction with the supervisor (72 percent).

29 percent of the more than 2,000 respondents in the survey conducted by Yougov would be willing in principle to move to another city for a new job. Hamburg would be the most common choice, followed by Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt and Cologne.

Basically, most office workers no longer want to go to the office every day. 56 percent were in favor of a mixture of office and mobile work. On the other hand, only 20 percent want to work exclusively from the office, and 18 percent only from home or on the go.

A Future Forum Pulse survey, conducted quarterly of more than 10,000 workers in the US, Australia, France, Germany, Japan and the UK, shows that inflexible return-to-office policies negatively impact the employee experience and drive employee turnover.

In the current survey, Yougov also specifically evaluated the responses from employees in technical functions. Among them, dissatisfaction and specific intentions to change were less common. In return, they were more willing to change cities and more often fans of hybrid or mobile workspaces.

“If companies want to have a chance in the competition for the best talent today, they have to offer flexible working conditions and the right digital infrastructure,” said Oliver Blüher, Head of Central Europe at Slack. For the survey, 2090 people with office jobs were interviewed online in late October and early November, including 1009 employees in technical functions.

(This article was first published on Tuesday, November 29, 2022.)