Pay v culture: Is there really a contest?

What’s really important to you as a performance marketer when it comes to your job, and indeed your career? Find out what our respondents think – and if this chimes with your thinking.

The fundamental question to anybody considering a new job, wondering if they should look to move, or indeed for those wanting to understand how to attract, recruit and retain staff is what actually matters in a job or career?

According to our respondents, who were each asked to choose their top three, it is not one thing or another. Performance marketers clearly want to be paid well – certainly fairly – but a deep aversion to toxic cultures and the necessity of work life/balance are nominally just as important, and perhaps reflecting a shift in the way we think about work in the 2020s.

Salary and culture top the charts

The top two most important factors to marketers when it comes to their jobs are salary and culture. Equally - by 39.5% of all our survey respondents each. 

In fact, our senior executive and middle management respondents were slightly more likely to rank culture and salary – with flexible working options and total reward packages making up their top three. Similarly, our entry level and executive panel ranked flexible working and total reward as equally important (joint second), with salary and culture equally topping their lists.

Suitable flexible working options was very close to marketers’ top two priorities at 38%, while the total reward package and a good work/life balance completes the top five.

It’s possible flexible working would have been high up the priority list pre-pandemic, but what is obvious is that rather than being seen as a ‘benefit’ as it might have been listed before, it is now treated as an often non-negotiable given for most in the industry when they consider a role.