Romanian employees’ workplace priorities changed during the pandemic, study shows

The Romanian employees’ workplace priorities have changed during the pandemic, most of them putting job safety and work-life balance at the top of the list.

According to the study “Up4Work Barometer” conducted by Up Romania in June, job security (75%), work-life balance (67%) and relevant, meaningful work (52%) are the essential characteristics for a good job, as seen by Romanian employees. The salary or extra-salary benefits are important for more than 40% of Romanians, Economedia.ro reported.

“The way we work has changed fundamentally in recent years, and the pandemic has contributed to this. Thus, it is important to understand that a job that you can rely on and where you can work safely has become a fundamental value for Romanian employees, who put increasingly more emphasis on the work-life balance,” sociologist Barbu Mateescu explained.

“The fact that more than half of Romanians are looking for a relevant, meaningful job, and that over half (59%) would work even if they had enough money to support themselves shows that the labour force in Romania is becoming more and more sophisticated and that Romanian employees are looking for a job that will offer them even non-material satisfaction,” he added.

More than half (55%) of respondents worked from home during the pandemic, according to the same survey.

The employees faced various difficulties during this period, depending on the nature of the job, the personal situation or the degree of professional responsibilities. Thus, 35% of Romanians do not feel safe at work, one in three has to deal with a marathon of conferences, 33% feel exhausted, and for one in five, it was challenging to work from home and be a parent at the same time.

Romanian employees also had to overcome different obstacles while working from home: lack of adequate space (27%), various interruptions caused by household chores (23%) and lack of technology or equipment (17%).

The Up4Work Barometer was conducted between June 3 and June 10 on the online platform iVOX. A total of 1,362 urban Romanians over the age of 18 participated in the survey.

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