Greater West Stats: What Workplace Data Says, Regionally

In each area, we compare what employers believe against what employees report. What emerges in the Greater West isn't one big gap. It's the same small gap, repeated across nearly everything that matters for retention.

That's the finding worth sitting with: employers in the Greater West consistently see the employee experience as better than employees report living it. 73.8% of employers say they're satisfied with work/life balance, but only 50.0% of employees say the same, a 23-point gap. 64.4% of employers think their team works the right number of hours; 55.8% of employees agree. 91.5% of employers believe their workforce is engaged; 82.6% of employees say the same. Each gap is modest. None of them are nothing.

The job search numbers raise the stakes. 32.7% of Greater West employers believe fewer than 10% of their workforce is looking for a new job. Employee data tells a different story: 31.4% say they plan to switch jobs within the year, and another 29.4% aren't actively searching but would leave for the right opportunity. That's more than half the workforce not fully locked in, a number most employers in the region aren't accounting for.

What makes the Greater West data worth reading carefully is where the gaps run deepest. Employers anticipate far more skill disruption ahead than employees expect for themselves, especially around leadership development, and lead with training as the definition of empowerment, while employees care most about being heard. Employers also point to pay, benefits, and growth opportunities as the reasons people leave — and employees agree those matter, but consistently select each at lower rates than employers expect. On AI, the story isn't a trust gap so much as a shared one: both employers and employees report real concern about bias, accuracy, and AI's ability to know when to hand a situation to a person. Where employees are ahead is the one place employers might not expect: using AI for sensitive, interpersonal workplace concerns at a higher rate than employers are entirely comfortable with.

The report isn't a verdict on how Greater West employers are doing. Most of the businesses reflected in this data are deeply invested in their people, and the region shows real strength in how aligned employers and employees are on core benefits. What it offers is visibility, a clearer picture of where optimism might be running ahead of reality, and where the opportunity sits for employers who want to close that gap before it shows up in turnover.

TriNet works with businesses across the Greater West to help them see that gap clearly, through HR support backed by real people, benefits best practice guidance grounded in what employees actually value, and expertise that understands what it means to operate in this market.

The 2025 State of Work: Greater West is available now. Download it free and see where the data lands for your business.

This is part of a series of seven regional reports. We've already released the Southeast, California, New York and New Jersey, and the Southern Central region, and over the coming months we'll be sharing findings from the Mid-Atlantic and the Great Lakes and New England. Each one tells a different story. We'll be publishing a post like this one each time a new report drops.

→ Download the 2025 State of Work: Greater West

→ Talk to a TriNet HR expert about what the data means for your business