Being a mem­ber of the very spe­cial cult of HR leaves you incul­cated with the phi­los­o­phy that peo­ple stay in their jobs because of work­place rela­tion­ships, specif­i­cally the one you have with your imme­di­ate super­vi­sor, and com­pen­sa­tion plays sec­ond fid­dle. I sus­pect this comes from the Per­son­nel Board God who whis­pers divine inspi­ra­tional kum­baya in the CEO’s ear.

The SHRM 2009 Employee Job Sat­is­fac­tion research report (you need to be a mem­ber to see it, so if you’re not one  you’ll have to trust me on this) clearly bursts the idyl­lic pre­cept that com­pen­sa­tion is sec­ondary.  Since SHRM didn’t ask moi for val­i­da­tion of their work and due to my nat­u­rally dis­trust­ing nature, I decided to do my own infor­mal research.  I’ll share later.

What’s going on, you might ask? Are HR types out of touch with the employed? After all, they are employ­ees too.

From the per­spec­tive of employ­ees who par­tic­i­pated in the sur­vey, the top 5 very impor­tant fac­tors in job sat­is­fac­tion are:

1. Job secu­rity
2. Ben­e­fits
3. Compensation/pay
4. Oppor­tu­ni­ties to use skills and abilities
5. Feel­ing safe in the work environment

HR pro­fes­sion­als have a dif­fer­ent view:

1. Rela­tion­ship with imme­di­ate supervisor
2. Ben­e­fits
3. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion between employ­ees and senior management
4. Oppor­tu­ni­ties to use skills and abilities
5. Man­age­ment recog­ni­tion of employee job performance

HR pro­fes­sion­als ranked compensation/pay 8th in impor­tance on the rat­ing scale of the 24 most impor­tant fac­tors in job sat­is­fac­tion. In fact, ben­e­fits and oppor­tu­ni­ties to use skills and abil­i­ties were the only fac­tors that made the top 5 for both groups.

It begs clar­i­fi­ca­tion to answer why we as HR pro­fes­sion­als are not on the same page as those whose employ­ment sat­is­fac­tion is entrusted  to us. Does our alle­giance and ethic have us tow­ing the cor­po­rate line as good HR pro­fes­sion­als even in anony­mous sur­veys or have we become jaded into believ­ing that giv­ing peo­ple oppor­tu­ni­ties for devel­op­ment and then pet­ting them for a job well done is what it’s all about? At the same time, in a pro­fes­sion that is often con­sid­ered back office admin­is­tra­tive “sup­port”, are we sim­ply jus­ti­fy­ing the often mediocre salary unfit­ting of car­ry­ing the bur­dens of the com­pany and lack­ing the glamor of other flashier posi­tions. Why don’t we feel like other employ­ees do in regard to com­pen­sa­tion? Do we have pro­fes­sional char­ac­ter flaws or more excep­tional ethic or characteristics?

I’m point­ing this out and ask­ing these ques­tions because I think it’s impor­tant for us to mon­i­tor and chal­lenge our­selves as much as we do oth­ers in our charge. In fact, it’s our oblig­a­tion to do so. There’s no rec­om­men­da­tion here, just room for discussion.

Now about that infor­mal (and com­pletely unsci­en­tific) research I con­ducted. I sent out the fol­low­ing tweet:

In the span of a few min­utes I received 9 responses. One tweep was clearly con­ster­nated at hav­ing to make a deci­sion and required a few prod­ding follow-up ques­tions. Of the respon­dents, 5 were HR/Recruiters and 4 work in var­ied other pro­fes­sions. It’s only fair to men­tion I fol­low and am fol­lowed a largely Recruiter/HR crowd.

HR Recruiters — 3 of 5 (60%) said a good boss is more impor­tant than salary.

Oth­ers — It was 50/50 with 2 vot­ing for the boss and the other 2 for the com­pen­sa­tion. The con­ster­nated tweep was in this group and said the boss wins and you can always find a way to earn extra income.

What do you say?