To be honest, after speaking with a lot of people who work in the industry and have several years of experience. I don't find these results to be surprising. Especially meaningful work/make a difference and benefits being the lowest. A lot of people in the field are so busy trying to excel in the latter and get promoted after a few months or maybe 1-2 years that the three listed above don't make a difference. People are more focused on career growth and development instead of the actual work they are currently assigned. They go on in the mindset that this is a temporary job and i need to excel and get promoted. So the efforts they put in have nothing to do with meaningful work and making a difference. It's for your own benefit and moving up the latter which is completely fine. But sometimes when people who are actually passionate about the work don't get the chance to work on that project or task. So in short its a business and the results are not surprising at all. My personal would is be recognized/values and respected. That is one thing I look for when it comes to opportunities and my personal work life currently. That is what keeps me motivated to learn more and give whatever opportunity becomes available to give it my best to be recognized/valued/respected in my field

I too am not surprised by the results of this study. Everyone that I've encountered in the workforce are genuinely excited to work. In my experience, I have not met a person that is unmotivated or sluggish because he or she does not want to work. I think for me personally, one of the reasons why I really like working is because I believe in the end result. I've always wanted to make a difference in patient care be it saving a life or aiding the process - this is primarily why I chose BME as my major. After getting real exposure to the medical device industry through internships, I really got a first hand chance to work on things that will directly affect a patient's lifestyle. One of the really cool stories I heard in one of my previous internships was a machinist had to undergo surgery and get a new total knee. So after doing research, he decided to go with the Stryker knee because he worked there and he knows the quality of Stryker's products. After getting the implant, he decided to find out who created the part. After some research into it, he found out that he himself actually machined the part that was inside of him. This is really what motivates me, this story is just another reason why I like my major.

I believe that there are a lot of things that motivate a coworker to give a good performance at work. I am surprised though that only 32% people, mentioned that they were motivated by the fair pay. I think this does not reflect the reality of how things happen. Everyone would get motivated by fair pay and other factors since we need certain amount of money to survive weekly, some of us have families who rely on our work. So if you had a good team to work with and the work was exciting and challenging, but the pay is not good enough, then you would have to find other alternatives for the income and that would be exhausting/stressful. My point is that a good work environment must have all the factors above, at least a little bit of each. Personally, I get motivated by the impact I am causing on the community through the project.
Let me know what you think.
Sincerely,
Roberto Pineda.

These results don't surprise me at all. The social environment that we surround ourselves with has a huge impact on what we do as individuals. Regardless if it is work, school or anything else where motivation is applicable. If I would categorize myself in one of those categories I would say I am motivated by being recognized/valued & respected. Also, the level of excitement and challenge the job provides. Respecting and valuing what we do as humans to a certain level helps in telling us that what we do matters and is visible. Also, the challenge bring on the spirit of experimenting and achieving something new.

I expected "fair pay" and "benefits" to be higher. I thought the main reason why most people worked was to get paid and have benefits to survive. I actually thought that was the main reason for "work" itself. For me "meaningful work/making a difference" would be the first thing on the list followed by "fair pay" and "benefits". While working for a company who was in the middle of the military industrial complex, I wasn't satisfied because I felt I wasn't really making a positive difference in the world. It was the main reason I wanted to leave and get training to do something to help people. Next on the list is "fair pay" and "benefits" because I need this to survive and as a woman who worked in corporate America, I have seen hard working, competent people be de-valuated by a company in this way. It really frustrates people to not get paid a decent wage and have benefits to support their family. Its very expensive to live in this country, own a house, save for retirement, save for your children's college education, afford childcare, feed and cloth children in general. I have comforted grown men who were crying because even though they had an engineering degree and were one of the top performers in the dept, they were on welfare. I'm really surprised "fair pay" and "benefits" wasn't higher on the list....

Individuals work to win cash. 100% off-base. In the event that it's actual then shouldn't something be said about the individuals who acquired a huge total of cash. They too do work.People work for the voracity of cash. A major NO. The individuals who are working for it are only fulfilling their covetousness and unwittingly take after away going nowhere.Some individuals need to work. They need to sustain themselves and other people who are reliant on them. In the event that they like what they are doing, alright. Be that as it may, if not they are simply doing their occupation. Not work.Imagine on the off chance that somebody furnished with a parcel of cash yet gave the condition they don't need to do any work. Just sit, watch television or something, have sustenance to eat. Anybody will feel worried after a period.

From the studies I'm not really all too surprised by the results. The study was based off people already working in the industry and asked about what keeps them working at their respective company. Without a doubt, fair pay and benefits are definitely necessities to just being able to sustain your ways of living. However, once those are already established, people will soon start to realize that they'd rather focus and put more value on satisfaction and development. People will start thinking more long-term and look at the big picture beyond money. This is probably why I believe those three categories: exciting work, career development, and working with great people are above fair pay. Usually the cycle is once you graduate college you try and look for a job with decent pay. However after you work for a little bit, and experience work life for the time being, you start to want more in terms of improvement on quality of life. If people aren't happy with where they are at, then they will eventually make the change and get what they truly most desire. Most likely the people in that study have already made that change.

In general, I am not surprised by the results gathered in this study. This is mainly due to working in industry for a number of years and getting to personally know a wide range of individuals holding a variety of jobs. The one thing that most individuals had in common was their inherent love of the stimulation their job offered them along with the allure of a better position down the line. It was these two motivators that seemed to be even more prevalent than this study depicts. It is these two self-affirming characteristics of a good job position that most effectively attract and keep the best pot entail employees. Stepping back, it makes sense because all the other options in the survey are nice ‘extras’ to have in ones work life, yet not required.

Personally, I am currently looking for a similar set of characteristics with the addition of work with great people and an above average pay scale. This is because I am just starting out in the workforce being relatively new to the industry and meeting great individuals would go a long way in both networking and assimilating to the company. In addition, I come out of school with debt from school so the quicker I can pay it off, the better I will feel/ financially be. These two characteristics, along with what was previously said, would best suite me when first starting work.

As someone who works within the medical device industry, I am kind of surprised how "meaningful work/ make a difference" is listed so low. I know the engineers that I have spoken mostly stated that they want to make a difference or introduce innovation that can improve mankind, but that was only speaking with R&D engineers so it may be slightly bias. Personally what motivate me is the potential difference I can do on the product and on the patients/doctors that are using the product.

Chris

The results as to why people work seem to be reasonably accurate to my reasoning for staying at a job. Number one motivation to work is the challenge and excitement. If you do not feel challenged at work then you remain stagnant which will cause people to dislike going to work. The second driving force for me to work at a company would be the people that I work with. If I do not get along with the employees or managers their is no point in me showing up to work. You have to be able to communicate well with those around you because in most engineering projects you have to work with other departments and people. Career growth and development is vital in why you want to go to work because I would want to move up in my career with time. If I feel like a company is limiting me to glass ceiling at work then I would transition into a different job which realizes what I could bring to the table. Everyone should have a passion for what they do in life and should be willing to accept a challenge within their career. Those are my main motivations for working at a company as a Biomedical Engineer.

I think these reasons will definitely vary based on the kind of work people do. I think these numbers are pretty reasonable for a private sector engineering job, and generally within my expectations. When you get down to more part-time service or retail industry work however, that's when I think money is the main motivator. That isn't to say that these other factors don't play into account. From personal experience I can say that when I was work part-time as a waiter, it was definitely my relationships with my co-workers that helped pass the time. It's also a little sad to see meaning work so low in the ranking. I guess those kinds of opportunities don't come up nearly as often.

I tend to agree with the overall results of the study. The top four reasons for working at a specific company are very much the same reasons I have for working somewhere (not necessarily in that order). Most people work to get a paycheck, which is perfectly valid and reasonable, but if you can get excitement and challenge from the work you are doing, its a huge huge bonus. Additionally, if you like the people you work with, another enormous bonus. Career growth and development is usually what keeps people at one particular company for any extended period of time (3+ years by my estimates). As any of these things diminish and the time spent increases, the likelihood of staying put decreases dramatically.

The study does make sense. Often times people do not end up doing the exact job they wanted to do. They may have to settle for what is stable. In doing so they have to find something they enjoy about the job in order for it to be more manageable. For example, my first job was at a restaurant. I didn't want to work in food or hospitality, but it was a stable opportunity at the time. So like in the study, I found that my coworkers really stayed because they needed the money and they liked the people they worked with. Also, like the result in the study, some of my coworkers enjoyed the fast paced work as an exciting challenge. So again, the study seems pretty accurate among. Any job or work environment out there.

In my opinion, I believe the results above are not surprising. After talking with few people in the industry and seeing it myself through internships for 2 years, it’s clear that employees need to be challenged and that the employers should have a career path set up. If there is an opportunity for the employees, where they are respected and have career path, I believe that itself is a big accomplishment. What motivates me is the challenging work and end result is helping someone live a better life. As a BME, I work every day thinking someone is getting his or her life back and can make difference.