What drives job satisfaction in IT companies?

Abstract

PurposeStrategic goal achievement in every sector of a company relies fundamentally on the firm's employees. This study aims to disclose the factors that spur employees of major Information Technology (IT) companies in the United States (US).Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, 15,000 reviews from the top 15 United States IT companies were collected from the social media platform Glassdoor to uncover the factors that satisfy IT employees. To learn the most meaningful features that influence the scores, positive and negative remarks, as well as advice to the management team, were analyzed through a support vector machine.FindingsResults highlight a positive attitude of coworkers, contributing to a positive environment and job satisfaction. However, unsatisfied IT employees reveal that work exhaustion is the main reason for their job dissatisfaction.Practical implicationsIT human resource departments can use these valuable insights to align their strategies in accordance with their employees' desires and expectations in order to thrive.Originality/valueThe study highlights the relevance of IT companies to understand the reasons behind their employees' satisfaction. Up until now, little is known concerning the variants of job satisfaction among IT employees, enriching the understanding in this particular professional area.