HIT ‘Consultants' Are Happier Than Their On-Staff Counterparts

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

A survey from Health IT Leaders has revealed that significantly more IT solutions providers with healthcare clients are happier in their jobs than full-time healthcare IT professionals.

The study, which surveyed 446 IT workers in May of this year, revealed that while 18 percent of full-time IT workers said they were “very satisfied” with their pay, a full 40 percent of IT solutions providers with healthcare clients answered the same. General work dissatisfaction rates were also lower for solutions providers, with just 11 percent noting that they were either “somewhat dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied,” and full-time workers coming in at 29 percent in those same areas.

Benefits

Not surprisingly, full-time IT workers exhibited higher rates of satisfaction with their benefits, with 74 percent being “somewhat” or “very” satisfied with their packages, and only 42 percent of solutions providers indicating the same. The majority of consultants indicated that they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their benefits.

Challenge

Regarding level of challenge in their job, both groups indicated similar feelings around the subject, with no more than 3 percent difference in any of the categories. The survey indicates though, that solutions providers who found their jobs challenging were more likely to indicate to higher levels of satisfaction, while full-time workers didn’t show the same correlation. Researchers actually found that almost one-quarter of full-time employees who indicated their jobs were extremely challenging, also indicated they were very dissatisfied in their work.

Meaningfulness

Solutions providers were also much more likely to rate their jobs as “extremely meaningful.” While both groups exhibited similar response rates around seeing their jobs as “very meaningful,” 40 percent of IT solutions providers found their jobs to be “extremely meaningful,” while only 29 percent of full-time workers answered the same. This correlated heavily with job satisfaction, with 89 percent of respondents who found their jobs extremely or very meaningful, also indicating that they were extremely satisfied with their work.

Motivation To Move

Both groups indicated that pay would be their number one motivator in changing jobs. Full-time workers (44 percent) placed a high value on work/life balance, while that importance didn’t make the top five concerns for solutions providers, who were more concerned about location/commute issues.

Additional information around job search status and a deeper look into the categories discussed is available with a download of the full survey results here, at Healthcare IT Leaders.