Salesforce Trailblazers are known as some of the most progressive, vocal, and supportive individuals in the technology industry. This all stems from Salesforce, the company that has been named one of the best places to work for a decade. But beyond the glowing headlines, have these values trickled down to all parts of the ecosystem?
“Employee engagement” has a different meaning from one individual to the next. In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, have any of the unexpected shifts in the way we work resulted in Salesforce professionals raising their perceived value of their organizations?
We were curious to find out everyone’s attitudes towards work, and if happiness and other measures correlate to salary, responsibilities, and stressors among Salesforce professionals. So, we called upon the community to share their experiences as part of the annual Ecosystem Careers and Hiring Guide. We’re looking forward to continuing our mission to communicate the Trailblazer ethos with these results.
Why “employee engagement”?
Have our career progression, recognition, and workplace stressors changed in the past 12 months? Are we excited about coming to work (whatever “coming” now means)?
The past two years amplified the conversation around diversity, which is now a requisite for employees to truly connect with the organization they work in. While it is firmly on the corporate agenda, which companies are making real strides versus only paying lip service?
How satisfied are you at work?
It’s a big question but a good place to set the scene.
Job satisfaction is hard to quantify because it is relative to an individual’s overall experience, but also how they feel at that given moment. Nevertheless (up to the challenge), we categorized satisfaction into the following areas:
- Colleagues
- Benefits
- Working hours
- Company culture
- Work-life balance
- Career progression
- Training and Development
What did we find? The good news is that the majority of Salesforce professionals are satisfied, with an overall satisfaction score of 73% (the average for all respondents, across all areas). The top three areas are: colleagues, benefits, and working hours.
“Training and Development” received the lowest “satisfied” and highest “dissatisfied” response – just over half of respondents are actually satisfied with the support they have to upskill.
Coincidentally, the survey asked a follow-up question in this area to test our assumption that, as a result of the pandemic, financial pressures/remote working had disrupted training schedules: “Has your organization cut training budgets that would have helped support your career progression?”
As two-thirds (67%) said budgets had not been cut, this could indicate that dissatisfaction existed pre-pandemic. Or could this be because the platform is expanding so fast (and management’s expectations are growing), which requires a never-ending cycle of learning?
Which Salesforce professionals enjoy the highest job satisfaction?
The question you want answered! We dug deeper to find out which Salesforce roles reported the highest job satisfaction, and the lowest. The results need explaining, though.
Salesforce Architects take the lead here, with three-quarters (76%) satisfied in their role. While the same proportion of Salesforce Admins are satisfied, a slightly higher number are dissatisfied (9%) than Architects (8%).
When it comes to satisfaction, there isn’t much difference between the different roles. But when it comes to job dissatisfaction, a wider gap forms; 11% of Salesforce Developers feel dissatisfied, whereas only 3% of Salesforce Consultants feel the same way.
The conclusion? If you’re purely aiming for job satisfaction, Admin or Architect seem like good options; if you want to avoid dissatisfaction, consider consulting instead*.
*Remember that these are subjective results, and I have no doubt there are huge variations between individuals in the same roles.
Are you excited about coming to work?
When you wake up in the morning, do you leap into the new day, or do you dread logging on for another 8+ hours? This question is great for getting to the day-to-day feelings towards our jobs, and sets the tone for our engagement with work. From the results, we can see that:
- 57% of Salesforce professionals are excited about coming to work.
- 25% are not excited.
“We use Salesforce to the fullest extent – I get to use so much of the system that it’s always a learning experience and we can always deliver amazing solutions without being held back.” – Business Functional Analyst, Canada
“Poor leadership and refusal to respect process development and think strategically; heavily opportunistic mindset results in massive technical debt, poor employee comprehension of mission due to changing goals, horrendous retention, and exacerbates strained bandwidth of remaining employees, with no succession planning or SOP documentation.” – Systems Administrator, United States
And… who is excited to come to work?
The “excited to come to work” results were surprising. Not only did these not align closely with job satisfaction, the differences between roles were evident.
According to the results, Salesforce Developers are the most excited to come to work – in fact, Developers are almost twice as likely to look forward to work than Consultants. On the flip side, Salesforce Consultants are almost twice as likely to dread going to work than Developers.
We could say that job satisfaction is a longer-term sentiment, whereas “excited to come to work” is a day-to-day reaction.
Does job satisfaction increase with seniority?
Depends who you ask!
- Admins: job satisfaction climbs nicely, while excitement trends downwards.
- Developers: job satisfaction peaks between 2-5 years on the job; excitement decreases step by step.
- Consultants: satisfaction decreases beyond the 5 year mark, however, excitement doubles. In such a fast paced role, it could be the adrenaline rush that’s talking!
How do Salesforce professionals feel about their work?
We’ve shared some reactions as to why people are either excited about or dreading work each day. Let’s dig into some of those influencing factors.
The top three positives were autonomy, a healthy level of challenge, and confidence to express opinions.
The clear negatives related to unreasonable workloads, and underappreciation from colleagues and management.
Are you uncertain about your career progression?
While the Salesforce Trailblazer community is inclusive, advocating for diversity and equality, these values may not trickle down to every organization’s ethos.
Unfortunately, 33% of respondents feel uncertain about their potential future prospects. Reasons include:
- Suffering ageism or age bias
- The ability to adapt and continue to learn so that I don’t lose my technical edge
- Burnout
- The direction and health of my organization doesn’t look positive
- There is more competition for jobs
- I’ve no clear career path – I don’t know what to do next
Providing career direction, as well as ways to enhance and adapt your skills are what we, at SalesforceBen.com and Mason Frank, strive to do. Check out our career pathways for Salesforce Admins, Salesforce Developers, Salesforce Consultants, Project Managers, and Marketing Cloud specialists.
How did your organization handle the pandemic?
Our lives were all impacted in some way, which gave organizations the chance to step up to the mark – whether that was proactively reassuring employees, or putting measures in place to lessen the pandemic’s indirect impacts. Examples include navigating redundancies empathetically, facilitating working from home, and continuing the organization’s culture.
86% of Salesforce professionals agree that their organization handled the impact of the pandemic well – an amazing result! The repeated themes were flexibility with working arrangements (especially during the transition to remote working), and re-opening office space with the correct precautions in place.
To avoid layoffs, respondents reported their organizations chose alternative options, such as reducing expenses or freezing bonuses.
Mental health awareness inspired promising, positive mentions for our industry:
“My organization was very quick to pivot to remote work, and they were very cognizant of the mental and emotional health needs of employees.” – Solution Architect, United States
Does your organization promote diversity and inclusion?
Amongst the turmoil of the pandemic, diversity was one topic that erupted internationally. The political and social movement, Black Lives Matter, made waves across the world. The awareness resulted in many people considering the underlying discrimination in societies.
Many organizations jumped onto the passion-circulating conversation. However, is it fair to say that some took practical measures, while others were simply paying “lip service” to diversity and inclusion?
Here is the statement that received the highest agreement (and the lowest disagreement):
- “My organization promotes racial and ethnic diversity in their workforce” (72% agree, 9% disagree).
Interestingly, the next top positive statements also came in as the top negative statements – in other words, opinion was split significantly.
- “My organization recruits and retains mature-aged staff” (63% agree, 14% disagree).
- “There are policies in place to support employees’ mental health in my organization” (62% agree, 14% disagree).
The lowest agreement responses centered around disability and neurodiversity. This could be an indicator where diversity advocacy needs to be centered going forward.
- “My organization’s workforce includes people with disabilities” (43% agree, 14% disagree).
- “My organization makes adjustments and supports employees who are neurodiverse” (37% agree, 10% disagree).
What is interesting to note is the “neutral” and “not sure” responses. These responses could mean that they’ve not had the opportunity to assess their organization’s response to certain scenarios. To give organizations the benefit of the doubt, larger organizations may have positive approaches in place that people may not be aware of.
Summary
This has been just a taster of what we found when we asked the Trailblazer community about their job satisfaction, their engagement at work, and how their organizations react to wider topics.
Download the Careers and Hiring Guide – the ultimate source for the latest career insights, hiring trends, and salaries within the Salesforce® universe
So, how satisfied are you in your role? Do you agree with our findings? Let us know in the comments!
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