What Matters To R&D Workers

Surprisingly little empirical information is available to help laboratory managers attract and retain productive R&D workers. Most employee attitude surveys do not focus on the specific attributes that scientists and engineers consider to be particularly important for research organizations. To address this deficiency, the U.S. Department of Energy, in the most comprehensive study on the subject to date, surveyed 2,200 R&D workers in 40 organizations within three major laboratories to determine what constitutes a good research environment and what improvements might be needed to best serve the needs of R&D workers. Thirty-six factors were found to be most important to R&D workers. These findings can help managers to plan their next employee attitude survey and to take actions that improve attraction and retention of R&D workers and R&D performance.