Lab · September 29, 2026
What people want from work besides money
Marta has two offers open in two tabs at 9:40 on a Tuesday night. One pays $4,200 a month and wants her in the office four days a week. The other pays $3,800 and lets her set her own hours.
Her spreadsheet has one column, salary. She adds a second and calls it "how the week feels". She can't fill it in.
That second column is what this page is about. Folkso has no data of its own on it, so this is a review of open studies, and each number below links to the report it came from.
What the studies show
46%
of workers say work-life balance is why they stay in a job. For pay it is 23%.
55%
of workers would quit if they felt they didn't belong. A year earlier it was 37%.
76%
of knowledge workers feel drained on days with a lot of meetings.
22%
of employees worldwide experienced loneliness a lot of the previous day.
The numbers come from Randstad Workmonitor 2026 and 2025 (27,062 and 26,778 workers in 35 markets), Atlassian (5,000 knowledge workers) and Gallup (141,444 employed people in more than 140 countries and territories). The last section lists each report with its sample.
What keeps people in a job
Randstad's Workmonitor 2026 surveyed 27,062 workers in 35 markets in October 2025. Pay is still the top draw for 81% of them. Staying is a separate question. Asked what keeps them in a role, 46% name work-life balance and 23% name pay.
The 2025 edition found that 44% of workers had quit a job because they thought the workplace was toxic, and 31% had left one that didn't allow enough flexible working.
Owl Labs asked 2,000 full-time US workers in July 2025 which factors matter in working life. Compensation scores 91% and a supportive manager 89%. Of the 27% who are actively looking for a new job, 49% give better pay as a reason and 48% give better work-life balance.
Hours and pace
Pew Research Center asked 5,395 US workers in October 2024 how satisfied they are with parts of their job. Relationships with colleagues and managers score highest. Pay and promotion score lowest, and the two kinds of flexibility sit in between.
Relationship with co-workers
- Extremely or very satisfied
- 64%
Relationship with manager
- Extremely or very satisfied
- 59%
Flexibility to choose when to work
- Extremely or very satisfied
- 49%
Flexibility to work remotely
- Extremely or very satisfied
- 37%
Pay
- Extremely or very satisfied
- 30%
Chances of promotion
- Extremely or very satisfied
- 26%
In the same Pew survey, 40% of workers are dissatisfied with how much they can work remotely.
Owl Labs finds that 47% list limited flexibility among their biggest concerns at work. 34% pick flexible hours as one of the most appealing benefits in a new employer, and 27% pick a four-day week. In the same survey, 59% book personal appointments during standard working hours, and 65% are interested in working in short blocks that follow their energy.
Place and control
In a Pew follow-up on workers whose jobs can be done from home, 46% said they would be unlikely to stay if their employer stopped allowing it, and 26% said very unlikely. Owl Labs asked hybrid and remote workers a similar question. 40% would start looking for another job if remote work were taken away, and 22% would expect a raise.
In Gallup's survey of remote-capable US employees, 61% would choose hybrid and 33% fully remote in November 2025. 6% would choose the office, while 22% worked on-site in May 2026.
How much say people have counts too. Gallup found in May 2025 that 91% of hybrid workers whose team sets the schedule call the policy fair, the same share as among those who set it themselves. When the employer decides, 73% do.
Meetings and calls
Atlassian surveyed 5,000 knowledge workers across four continents in 2024. 78% say they are expected to attend so many meetings that it is hard to get their work done. 76% feel drained on days with a lot of them, and 51% work overtime at least a few days a week because of meetings. 80% say they would be more productive with less time in meetings.
Loneliness and belonging
Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 puts daily loneliness at 22% of employees worldwide in 2025, up from 20% in 2023. It depends on where people work.
Fully remote
- Lonely a lot of the previous day
- 24%
Hybrid
- Lonely a lot of the previous day
- 24%
On-site, job could be remote
- Lonely a lot of the previous day
- 18%
On-site, job can't be remote
- Lonely a lot of the previous day
- 21%
Remote and hybrid employees report loneliness at a rate 6 points higher than on-site employees whose jobs could be done remotely.
Randstad's 2025 edition asked about belonging. 83% want their workplace to provide a sense of community, and 85% say they perform better when they feel one. 55% say they would quit if they felt they didn't belong, and 36% wouldn't mind earning less if they had friends at work.
Atlassian asked what makes people feel connected to their team. 45% said working through a hard project together and 17% said meetings, while 55% feel lonely at work even on days packed with meetings.
What these numbers can't tell you
- These are answers on a questionnaire. What people say and what they do with a real offer can differ.
- The groups differ. Randstad covers 35 markets, Gallup's loneliness figure more than 140 countries and territories, Pew and Owl Labs the US, Atlassian knowledge workers. We don't add numbers from different studies together.
- Four of the five publishers sell something in this area, from meeting cameras to staffing. Pew is the exception.
- We found no open survey that asks people to choose between writing and calls, so the meeting numbers are the nearest we have.
What this means for finding people
Most of what these studies measure fits into one line a person can say, something like "my own hours and more writing than calls".
A title and a rate leave those questions open. You can say them to your AI instead, the way you would tell a friend. "Part time, mostly writing, no standing calls, small changes shipped daily." Folkso reads that in two steps. It first checks that the person does the work you need. Then it compares how they work with how you work and puts people with more in common higher up.
Vibe is our word for that second step. It covers hours, calls or writing, pace and what matters to a person. Here is how we check that the right people come first. How to describe it to your AI is in the guide How to tell your AI who you like working with.
Whether two people get along shows up in the first conversation. The final choice stays with you.
Folkso is free. Connect it once, and the next time a task needs a person, your AI finds them right in the conversation.
Sources
- Randstad, Workmonitor 2026. Published 20 January 2026. 27,062 workers in 35 markets, surveyed 10 to 28 October 2025.
- Randstad, Workmonitor 2025. Published 21 January 2025. 26,778 workers in 35 markets, surveyed 7 October to 6 November 2024.
- Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026, global data and report page. Published April 2026. 263,810 respondents, 141,444 of them employed, in more than 140 countries and territories, surveyed January to December 2025.
- Gallup, Hybrid Work indicator. Data to May 2026. Random sample of US adults working full or part time from the Gallup Panel. The page doesn't state the sample size.
- Gallup, Hybrid Work in Retreat? Barely. Published 2 September 2025. 17,660 US adults working full or part time, surveyed 7 to 16 May 2025.
- Pew Research Center, Americans' job satisfaction in 2024. Published 10 December 2024. 5,395 US workers, surveyed 7 to 13 October 2024 (methodology).
- Pew Research Center, remote workers and staying in a job. Published 13 January 2025. 2,315 US workers with jobs that can be done from home, surveyed 7 to 13 October 2024.
- Owl Labs, State of Hybrid Work 2025, US report. 2,000 full-time US workers, surveyed in July 2025.
- Atlassian, Workplace Woes, Meetings Edition and the article on the survey. Article dated 21 May 2024. 5,000 knowledge workers across four continents. The pages don't state the countries or the dates.