One size does not fit all: what different groups value at work.
Most people strategies are built for the average employee, who does not exist. Building them for the average woman, graduate or fifty-year-old instead is no better.
On this page
Ask people to choose what matters to them, compare groups with care, and build choice into the offer.
What our earlier research found
Our research into work values, One Size Does Not Fit All, was first published in 2008 and reissued in 2013. It asked a large sample of UK employees across industries and professions to trade twelve work values against each other in a forced-choice exercise, rather than rate each one separately. The twelve were salary and rewards, career progression, personal growth, well-being, cooperation, job satisfaction, organisational confidence, working conditions, loyalty and trust, ethical standards, independence and the relationship with one’s manager.
The headline finding gave the research its name. There were differences between demographic groups, but the differences between individuals within any group were always larger than the differences between groups. And one value, cooperation, appeared near the top for every group studied.
That research is now well over a decade old. Working patterns have changed – hybrid and remote work most obviously – and so has the make-up of the workforce, so we do not quote its detailed group differences here. Its central point has not dated: a group label is a weak guide to what any one person values. Treat it as a reason to measure your own workforce, not as a substitute for doing so.
Two mistakes, one cause
One offer for everyone. A single benefits package, a single development route, a single way of recognising good work. It suits whoever designed it and people like them, and it quietly loses everyone whose priorities differ. In our experience of exit data, this often shows up as people leaving for reasons that a more flexible offer would have addressed.
Assumptions by group. “Younger people only care about progression.” “Parents want fewer hours.” Some of these assumptions have a grain of truth on average; all of them are wrong about many individuals. Built into policy, they become a form of stereotyping, and the people they misdescribe notice.
Both come from the same place: deciding what people value without asking them in a way that reveals their priorities.
How to find out what your people value
Ask for priorities, not ratings
In our experience, when people rate each value separately they tend to rate most of them as important, and the results do not tell you where to focus. Ask them to rank a short list, or to choose between pairs, so that every answer is a trade-off.
Pair importance with experience
For each value, also ask how well the organisation delivers it. The useful finding is the gap: values people rank highly and experience poorly.
Cut by group, with care
Compare priorities and gaps by group – sex, age band, ethnicity, disability, caring responsibilities, grade, role family, location – using a minimum group size and the other safeguards in measuring inclusion across the lifecycle.
Look within groups as well as between them
For each group, look at the spread, not just the average. A group whose answers divide evenly between two priorities needs a choice, not a single policy.
Add the lifecycle view
What new starters say attracted them, and what leavers say would have kept them, are value statements too. Compare them with what employees say. Where they agree, you can act with confidence.
Measure again
Priorities shift with life stage, the labour market and the organisation. Re-ask every year or two with the same questions.
What to do with it
Build choice into the offer
Where priorities divide, offer a menu rather than a single package: flexibility in hours or location where the work allows, different development routes, recognition that is not only financial.
Equip managers to ask
The most reliable way to know what one person values is for their manager to ask them, and to keep asking; a regular stay interview is a simple way to do it.
Invest in what everyone shares
If cooperation and working relationships matter to every group, as they did in our research, then how teams are built and connected – especially when people work apart – is a priority for the whole workforce, not a niche one.
Check your policies against the data
Where a policy assumes what a group wants, test the assumption.
Drawn from great{with}talent’s work-values research, One Size Does Not Fit All: Demographic Differences in Work Values and Employee Engagement in the UK (first published 2008; summary reissued 2013). The research is dated and its group-level findings are not reproduced here. To find out what your own people value across the lifecycle, see ED&I and WinningFormula.
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