2026年AI时代下员工幸福感研究报告

Employeehappinessin the age of AI Why retail lags and what leaders get right Employee happiness has moved from an HRconcern to a CEO-level strategic priority Over the past decade, employee happiness (EH)has progressively shifted from a “soft” HR topicto a core leadership and performance issue. •Post-pandemic workforce expectations havefundamentally evolved. For Gen Y and Gen Z inparticular, work is no longer seen merely as ameans of financial security, but as a keycomponent of identity, purpose, and self-fulfillment. Employers that fail to acknowledgethis shift risk disengagement and attrition,regardless of compensation levels. •A growing body of academic and businessresearch demonstrates a direct link betweenEH and business outcomes, includingproductivity, customer satisfaction,innovation, and financial performance (cf.below). What was once anecdotal is nowempirically proven. Employee happiness is becoming astrategic lever for performance,resilience, and future readiness. •The global talent war is intensifying,particularly around scarce and strategic skillssuch as data, AI, and advanced digitalcapabilities. In this context, the ability toattract, engage, and retain top talent hasbecome a decisive competitive advantage(Darwin X Data & AI Human Capital report). Pleasure in the job putsperfection in the work Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics(4th century BCE) Employee ratings predict stock returns1. Firms with the largest quarterly increases in Glassdoorratings outperform those with the largest declines by around 0.74% per month over the next quarter.01 Ratings capture real improvements in firm fundamentals1,2.A one-star increase in employeeratings is associated with a ~0.10 percentage-point increase in YoY ROA and a 0.30 pp increasein sales growth.02 The pattern is robust across studies and markets2,3.Firms with high employee satisfactionexhibit higher profitability and valuations; the portfolios of most highly rated firms earn abnormalreturns of ~1.35% per month.03 Retail underperforms where employee happiness isbuilt: pay, balance, growth, and leadership Pharma, and CPG, retail looks structurally weaker indelivering the everyday conditions employees expect. Retail lags on overall employee happiness On average, the retail industry trails other sectors onoverall employee happiness measured by our combinedrating (see methodology, p11). The average retailcompany scores around 7% lower than companies inBanking, Insurance, Pharma, and CPG (Figure 1). Thisgap is not driven by one isolated weakness. Rather, retailunderperforms across the core conditions that shapehow employees experience work day to day: whether thejob feels sustainable, whether the rewards feel fair,whether there is a credible path forward, and whetherleadership creates confidence. Growth and leadership also lag behind This weakness extends beyond day-to-day experienceinto the more forward-looking parts of the employeeproposition. Retail employees seem less likely to believethat the sector offers strong career prospects, and lesslikely to feel confident in the management environmentaround them. In the Career Opportunities category, retailscores an average of 3.22 compared with 3.52 for thebenchmark group average, while in Senior Management,it scores 3.06 versus 3.36. This suggests that the sectoris not only struggling to meet immediate employeeneeds, but is also less successful at creating confidencein long-term growth and reliable leadership. Daily needs are not being met consistently The clearest weakness is in the Compensation andBenefits Glassdoor (GD) category. Put simply, retailemployees do not feel as well rewarded for their workcompared to employees in other industries. Retail scores3.30 on this dimension, compared with an average of3.77 for the benchmark group overall. The same findingappears in the Work-Life Balance category, where retailscores roughly 11% lower than peers. “Retail sits at the bottom of ouremployee happiness ranking,and underperforms in everyother Glassdoor subcategory” This is especially important because it affects both sidesof the employee equation at once: the effort required bythe role, and the value employees feel they get back.Against industries such as Banking, Insurance, You can't buy happiness, but you can design for it Employee happiness is most sustainable whenorganizations get two things right at once: the extrinsicprerequisites that remove anxiety and friction (security andstability, fair rewards, enabling conditions), and the intrinsicdrivers that create energy and meaning at work (autonomy,growth, belonging). Security, stability, and enabling conditions Retail work is oftendefined by unstable schedules, shortnotice, and fluctuating hours, which undermine work-lifebalance and make it difficult for employees to plan theirlives around their jobs. ABerkeley study found that aroundtwo-thirds of hourly retail workers receive less than twoweeks’ notice of their schedule, a factor shown to n