Scary stats on employee disengagement

It’s the most frightening time of the year – Halloween – but if you’re dealing with disengaged employees, you’re in for a real fright!

This year, businesses will invest about $77 billion in non-cash rewards in an effort to praise, acknowledge and otherwise motivate their employees, customers and corporate partners. If you’re business isn’t doing anything about incentives and motivation, take a look if you dare at our ghoulish list of statistics on disengagement!

Did you know: 

• 8 out of 10 employees who leave their workplace often choose to do so within the first few months of being hired.
• The UK came 18th out of 20 countries in terms of employee satisfaction at work.
• It is estimated that active disengagement costs between 450 billion to550 billion per year—and that is just in the United States!
•70 percent of engaged employees indicate they have a good understanding of how to meet customer needs; only 17 percent of non-engaged employees say the same.
•78 percent of engaged employees would recommend their company’s products or services, against 13 percent of the disengaged.
•44 per cent of staff believe their company doesn’t play its part in motivating them.
•40 per cent feel their job does not allow them to work at their peak.
•54 per cent of workers feel under-appreciated.
•51 per cent of British workers say work has negatively impacted their social life

Sources: Panacea Adviser, 2013 Gallup report on employee engagement, 2014 Global Perspectives Survey from ORC International, OnePoll survey of 2,000 working people in the UK, Incentive Research Foundation (IRF)

Now you know the scary stats – what can you do about it? Here are the top 5 tips for re-energising and engaging staff once again.

Training

A Harvard Business Review report showed that typically managers receive formal management training about 10 years after they begin managing people. When managers account for up to 70% of variance in employee engagement scores, training is key across all levels of your business.

Feedback

Whether it’s positive, negative or neutral, feedback is key. According to a towers Watson report, 43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week.

Gamification

Gamification is set to become the next big trend in HR and people management, making everything from developing skills through to engaging employees to make incremental improvements.

Collaborative working

An ISG report shows that over 50% of businesses are using software as a service (SaaS) such as Yammer, Google Drive and Huddle to allow employees to work together across projects. Rather than locking down IT systems for employees, ensuring an open forum could be a way to re-energise employees

Fostering relationships

The future of work study showed that friendships and talk about non work-related topics can forge a closeness that makes coworkers more collaborative, productive, and accountable. As a company, making situations that can enhance the chances of bonds being formed may not only improve the wellbeing of your employees, but also their output.