I'm obsessed with making the workplace better for everyone.
Why? On average, we spend 3,515 days at work, just under ten years!
An engaged workforce can increase productivity, job satisfaction, sales, and revenue. We will likely go the extra mile to achieve our company's goals when engaged in our work.
Now, I want to ask you a question. Are you doing everything you can to foster employee engagement in your organisation?
Here are my top 10 employee engagement statistics and a dozen strategies to support and improve employee engagement.
Contents
What is Employee Engagement?
According to a Forbes article, the definition of employee engagement is:
the emotional commitment the employee has to the organisation and its goals
What I like about this article is the contrast of employee engagement with employee happiness and satisfaction. It states that engagement goes beyond just being happy or satisfied at work.
Engaged employees are emotionally committed to the organisation and its goals. They don't work just for money or the next promotion but on behalf of the organisation's goals and are willing to put in discretionary effort to help the company succeed.
Employee Engagement and Remote Working
There is an ongoing debate among leaders and organisations with remote-capable employees about which work setup is better: fully remote, hybrid, or fully on-site.
The answer to organisational challenges may not be simply getting people back in the office five days a week. The latest KPMG survey finds that:
83% of CEOs of large companies ($500m+ revenue) expect a full return to the office within the next three years.
However, as reported by Forbes:
73% of Amazon employees are considering quitting as a response to a return-to-office (RTO) mandate.
And there is a gender impact among these mandates - flexibility and work/life balance are key to retaining women.
A Deloitte survey found that:
over 40% of women surveyed reported their employer had recently mandated an RTO
of those, 25% are required to be on-site full time
as a result, 30% say they have had to relocate, just over a quarter (26%) say it's negatively impacted their mental health and 20% report decreases in productivity.
And flexible working comes with its own challenges for women.
A lack of flexible working hours is one of the top reasons (15%) women have changed jobs over the past year.
95% women surveyed believe requesting or taking advantage of flexible working opportunities will negatively affect their chances of promotion.
While 93% don't expect their workload would be adjusted if they moved to a flexible working arrangement.
Each setup has its own challenges and benefits in terms of fostering employee engagement. For instance, remote work offers greater flexibility and eliminates commuting stress, but it can also lead to feelings of isolation. On the other hand, being on-site offers bonding, collaboration, and mentoring opportunities, but it may also increase stress due to commuting and rigid schedules.
And it's not the only piece of the puzzle. According to Gallup's analysis:
Employee engagement has a 3.8 times greater influence on employee stress than work location.
Leadership Development and Employee Engagement
It's worth noting that employees' feelings about their jobs are heavily influenced by their relationships with their team and manager, regardless of whether they work remotely or on-site. Inclusive and fun team-building activities for virtual or hybrid teams can be a great way to help build stronger teams. While investing in leadership development strategies and leadership coaching offers a robust approach and powerful catalyst for growth.
➡️ Hungry for more statistics to help plan your leadership development strategy? Check out our top leadership development statistics.
Employee Engagement Factors in Decline
Gallup found engagement factors with the steepest declines were:
Clarity of expectations.
Connection to the company's mission or purpose.
Opportunities to learn and grow.
Opportunities for employees to do their best.
Feeling like someone cares about you at work.
Top 10 Employee Engagement Statistics
Globally, only 23% of employees are engaged.
Organisations with an engaged workforce are 23% more profitable.
Employees who feel heard are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work.
Highly engaged business units achieve a 10% increase in customer ratings.
Highly engaged business units in high-turnover businesses have 21% less employee turnover, while low-turnover businesses have 51% less employee turnover.
Organisations prioritising diversity, equity, and inclusion experience 3.2 times more engaged employees.
Highly engaged teams saw 78% lower absenteeism.
The direct line manager determines 70% of team engagement.
83% of millennials are actively engaged at work when they believe their organisation's culture is inclusive.
Top 12 Employee Engagement Strategies
Some ways to improve employee engagement include:
Start with data: Measure employee engagement and take proper action - fruit bowls and yoga are not enough.
Support your managers: Yep - this means giving them mentoring or leadership coaching. Just because you promote that awesome software engineer to lead a team - doesn't mean they know how to do it. Managers and leaders play a crucial role in fostering engagement and enhancing employee performance. Support with development is key.
Provide career growth opportunities: Offering employees opportunities for career advancement, mentorship, professional development, and choice assignments can enhance engagement.
Creating a culture of learning: Promoting continuous learning and development for employees can boost engagement and motivation.
Recognise employees: Acknowledging and appreciating employees' efforts and contributions through recognition programs can increase engagement.
Communicate the vision: Encouraging transparent communication and clearly connecting work with the company vision. We all want to know our work has a purpose.
Offering meaningful work: Providing employees with challenging, purposeful work aligned with their values can increase engagement and motivation.
Build an inclusive company culture: Cultivating an inclusive culture based on shared values driving diversity, equity, and inclusion can increase engagement, such as flexible work policies, reverse mentoring, ERGs, and inclusive leadership.
Align and empower employees: Communicate the vision and give employees autonomy, decision-making authority, and the resources they need to succeed.
Build inclusive work policies: Support employees through flexible work arrangements, wellness programs, and mental health initiatives that can improve engagement.
Embrace Radical Candor: Establishing a feedback culture where bosses and employees receive feedback. Get intentional about how you do this with frameworks such as Radical Candor.
Make collaboration work better: Encouraging collaboration is not enough; support employees to collaborate better - no one wants to be in Zoom all day.