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Warning to top brass, if you want to keep your top talent: despite reports that company holiday parties are coming back, they aren’t what most matters to employees, even if they include an open bar. 

Instead your workers’ top wishes are for a cash bonus (73%), salary increase (60%), or paid time off (36%), according to Glassdoor’s Employee Holiday Survey released today.

I wonder how many U.S. firms will give end-of-year bonuses, compared to the 75% of South African firms that promise to do so, according to Alistair Anderson. Younger employees, those under 34, are most likely to cite a raise as their top goal while the 45-54 year olds most want a new job.

1. Top Reason for Stress? A Bad Boss

2% even admit that their top goal is “to help get their boss fired.” That’s not surprising since a record high 55% of employees dislike their job with the top reason being they “hate” their boss, according The Conference Board.

Cheery thought. Leadership consultant Robert Hogan, reported even more dire findings at the American Psychological Association’s annual conference: “Seventy-five percent of working adults say the worst aspect of their job — the most stressful aspect of their job — is their immediate boss.”

2. Show Me the Money

Despite the widely-held notion that implicit rewards, like recognition, motivate us more than explicit, like money, this survey shows that a majority of us feel that, in a company, money is the most concrete form of recognition.

3. “The New Robber Barons”:  Make Pay More Fair

These feelings may be exacerbated by Americans’ awareness of the growing difference between CEO and employee compensation, “the largest gap in the world” according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “CEOs are making 380 times the salary of the average worker.”

What’s worse, “the Bush tax cuts” siphon money from us as taxpayers to many CEOs. One astounding result, for example, is that “of last year’s 100 highest-paid U.S. corporate chief executives, 25 took home more in CEO pay than their companies paid in federal income taxes,” according to the Institute of Policy Studies.

4.  Who Are the Most Popular CEOs?

Somewhat dismally, the average CEO rating by their employees on Glassdoor is just 67%. The most popular CEOs this year are Apple’s Tim Cook at 97% and Ernst & Young’s Jim Turley at 95%. Also, it would be embarrassing if Glassdoor, a firm with the core mission of providing an “inside look at how employees really feel about their company” was, itself, considered a bad place to work. In fact, it won an award as one of the Best Places to Work. Conversely, 24/7 Wall Street analyzed employee reviews on Glassdoor this August to come up with America’s Worst Companies to Work for. Hint: The lack of felt connection with management was key.

5. What do Job Seekers Most Want?

A majority of job seekers, when researching a potential employer, most want to know about the salary, company culture, and paid time off., according to another Glassdoor survey.

6. Are You Being Fairly Paid?

If you wonder how your salary compares to others in comparable jobs you can get ballpark estimates at Glassdoor, Payscale.com, Indeed.com, Salary.com or the Bureau of Labor Statistics according to my Forbes colleague, Jacquelyn Smith. Forbes columnist, Susan Adams advises job seekers on how to play detective to see what a position might pay. See the rest of the column over at Forbes.

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