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Companies spend more than $100 billion every year trying to improve employee engagement in the workplace. Despite their efforts, employee engagement numbers remain under 35 percent. It’s vital for employers to understand the role employee disengagement plays in overall business success. Here’s a look at ten shocking stats on employee disengagement.
10 Statistics on Employee Disengagement
1. Less than three out of ten employers have an engagement strategy in place
According to a recent study, only 25 percent of employers have an established engagement strategy in place. As with most business processes, engagement won’t just happen overnight. It requires a comprehensive strategy that defines your company goals and develops techniques for fostering engagement throughout the workplace.
You also must determine what metrics you will use to assess the success of your engagement strategy. Developing a strong strategy will help to evaluate the efficiency of your program and to ensure you can obtain the outcomes your company needs.
The True Cost of Employee Disengagement
2. Only 30% of employees feel encouraged to grow with the company
Career growth and development is significant to today’s employees, especially millennials and Gen Z workers. In fact, the opportunity for career advancement is one of the top reasons people seek new job opportunities. Despite this fact, the latest Gallup’s State of the American Workforce shows that only three in ten employees feel that their employers are concerned about their development within the company.
If companies want to improve employee engagement rates, as well as retention and productivity rates, they must create a well-defined employee development program. It’s crucial that your employees perceive this program as fair, unbiased, and transparent, or it could have the reverse effect and cause your employees to seek employment elsewhere.
Why you can’t afford disengaged employees
3. 75% of employees quit because of their boss – not the company
According to a recent study, employee disengagement starts with the manager, not the company itself. This report revealed that 75 percent of workers state that they left a job because of their supervisor or manager and not necessarily the company. This statistic should be a wake-up call to companies across the globe. Employee engagement strategies must start at the top and work its way down. Only when these strategies attempt to boost engagement at all levels within the company can employers hope to deal with employee disengagement effectively.
4. Companies with higher engagement levels obtain 21% higher profits
Study after study shows a clear link between employee engagement and company profits. In fact, according to a study released by Forbes, companies with higher levels of employee engagement see a 21 percent increase in profits or more. This statistic alone should be enough to grab any business leader’s attention.
After all, any strategy that can boost profits by more than 20 percent should obtain close attention. It makes sense. The more engaged your workers are to the company, the higher productivity, quality, and workplace morale you can achieve. These factors lead to better products and services and lower employee turnover.
5. Only 11% of workers receive weekly recognition
There is a direct correlation between disengagement in the workplace and lack of recognition. Like everyone else, your employees want recognition for their hard work. Without consistent recognition, employee disengagement can skyrocket within your workplace. This level of disengagement can tempt even your best employees to leave. In fact, according to our recent study, nearly one in five employees stated their main reason for considering a new job was because they’re not being recognized.
Unfortunately, Achiever’s study also reveals that only 11 percent of those employees surveyed said they receive weekly employee recognition, and just over 30 percent receive monthly recognition. Employers must do better than this if they hope to reap the many rewards that enhanced employee engagement has to offer. Fortunately, good employee recognition software makes it easy for employers to develop a strategy that’s both efficient and effective.
6. Employee disengagement costs companies more than $450 billion a year
According to a Harvard Business Review report, employee disengagement costs employers anywhere from $450 billion to $550 billion every year. This amounts to an incredible amount of waste within the business sector. Many employers overlook most of these expenses because they fail to see the link between higher costs and low levels of employee engagement.
The reality is the low employee engagement can lead to a higher turnover rate, which will increase hiring and onboarding costs. Disengagement in the workplace can also lead to higher absenteeism, lower quality, and reduced productivity rates – all of which affect the company’s bottom line.
7. 21% of employees say that their employer never asks for feedback
Imagine trying to voice your opinion, and no one is listening. That is how many employees feel, and studies show that they might be right. In our recent report on disengagement in the workplace, more than 20 percent of respondents said that their employer was terrible at requesting feedback. In some cases, their employers never asked for feedback at all.
You might not rank employee feedback is a priority, but 13 percent of workers are ready to look for a new job because their employers don’t collect feedback. You can avoid losing your best employees by setting up an employee feedback process that goes well beyond the standard annual review process. Listening to your workers is just the first step. You must also remain responsive and act when necessary.
8. Only 6 out of 10 employees know what their job expectations are
It can be nearly impossible for employees to remain engaged in the workplace without having a clear understanding of their specific job expectations, as well as the company’s goals and missions. This fact may seem like an obvious point, but it might be just so obvious that many employers are overlooking it. According to Gallup’s report, only 60 percent of employees claim to know what their expectations are at work.
It’s vital that employers don’t overlook the process of setting clear expectations for their employees. Studies suggest that by improving this statistic by just 20 percent, you can improve retention rates by 14 percent and increase production by 7 percent.
9. Higher employee engagement leads to fewer safety issues
Most employers don’t relate employee engagement with workplace safety, but maybe they should. A study of the healthcare industry showed that providers with high engagement levels have 70 percent lower safety incidents than companies with lower levels of employee engagement. This improvement in workplace safety can be attributed to enhanced employee feedback processes, comprehensive employee recognition programs, and more precise job expectations – all of which improve engagement rates.
10. Lack of inclusiveness can cause disengagement
There is good reason why 69 percent of executives surveyed by Deloitte cited diversity and inclusion as a top priority. Deloitte’s stats show that 39 percent of employees would leave their current company for one that had a more inclusive culture, and over half (53 percent) of millennials would do so. A diverse workplace environment brings fresh perspective and it’s important to embrace diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Understand what truly engages and motivates your employees by collecting honest feedback.
Employee disengagement may be costing your company more money than you think. The good news is that improve engagement in the workplace can provide a variety of benefits, including lower turnover rates, improve workplace safety, reduced absenteeism and more. Learn more about the current state of employee disengagement by downloading Achievers Complacency Report.
