What's More Important To You At Work? Stability or Creativity?

Remember the hype about "free agent nation" that started more than a decade ago? It's a whole lot less attractive to recession-weary U.S. workers, who now rate job security and stability higher than career advancement, according to a survey released last week by Towers Watson, the employee benefits firm.

Call it "workplace nesting." Eight out of 10 survey respondents want to settle into a job, and roughly half say they want to work for a single company their entire career. The rest want to...