It is a little scary, but according to a recent Towers Perrin study, a mere 8% of global workers are “fully engaged.” A staggering 71% are categorized as either partially engaged or partially disengaged, or what London Business School Professor Gary Hamel, refers to as workers who “don’t really give a poop” and simply want to collect a paycheck.
On the other hand, “the customer’s experience with the agent is more important than the customer’s experience with the brand in driving performance or stated differently, the person is more important than the brand.” - Rosenzweig, The Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement
Most companies spend a lot of time and money finding the best employees to fill a position and pay them a top salary to show up every day… but what if that is not enough, what if they are already looking to the horizon for the next bigger pay deal and a new role. What about all that money that was invested in training them? Are they really delivering the value hoped for? (Oh, and don’t confuse mere employee satisfaction with employee engagement)
Research seems to indicate that business is not just about talent and efficiency, it is also about people. A recent meta-analysis by Gallup, of 199 studies, in 152 organizations, 44 industries and 26 countries, demonstrated that high employee engagement delivers an uplift of every business performance number. “Profitability up 16%, Productivity up 18%, customer loyalty up 12% and quality up an incredible 60%.”
So, are your employees engaged?
Below is data from – A Study by Modern Survey, Conducted September 2011
“The number of fully engaged employees has dropped to a record low 8%. The number of under engaged employees has risen to a record high of 42%. The cumulative total number of employees either under engaged or disengaged has also reached a new record high of 70%. The total number of employees reporting that they are actively seeking a new employment opportunity at another organization is only 21%. The item most strongly correlated with engagement mean score proved to be “I have confidence in the future of my company/organization. In summary, while many employees appear to be unhappy or uncommitted to their jobs they are not seeking out new opportunities.”
Engagement Components
The chart shows the percentage of favorable responses to each of five engagement index items for the three most recent survey iterations.
| Engagement Index Question | Aug. 2010 | Feb. 2011 | Sept. 2011 |
| Takes pride in company | 73% | 69% | 66% |
| Intends to stay with company | 62% | 55% | 57% |
| Goes “above and beyond” | 58% | 51% | 48% |
| Recommends company | 49% | 46% | 41% |
| Sees promising future at company | 48% | 41% | 34% |
Unfortunately the only engagement item to see an increase was the item, “I intend to stay with my company for a long time,” while the item with the most drastic decrease in favorable responses was, “I believe I have a promising future at my company.” In other words the disengaged are likely to stay.
As Nilofer Merchant a corporate advisor and speaker on innovation methods wrote in her recent HBR blog: “let’s all agree that when someone proposes that we can put off that peopley stuff till later, we can all answer a resounding: “No, we can’t.” It’s not the frosting on the cupcake. It’s the key ingredient in how we make the cupcake bigger.”
Take a look at more empirical evidence on the importance of employee engagement or read a research paper on “Why Does Doing Good Matter?” or contact us to find out how we can help you engage your employees.
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