Steps for improving employee engagement – and the workplace

Employee engagement has stalled – and that’s a problem for everyone. Here’s what you can do

Covid-19 has left employee engagement levels plateauing after a decade of progress.

Highly engaged employees are happier, more productive and stay in their jobs longer. To get the engagement up again, employers need to understand who their employees are and how to keep them engaged.

It’s a challenging time for business. The worst of the pandemic may be over, but its impacts remain in the shape of a stagnant economy and tightening labour market.

For employers, maintaining an effective recruitment and retention strategy has never been more vital. Employee engagement is increasingly relevant.

Highly engaged employees are those who hold favourable opinions of their work. They may demonstrate passion for their profession and feel a personal resonance with their workplace and its culture. This in turn will enable them to go above and beyond in their work.

At the other end of the scale, disengaged employees hold a negative opinion of their work. Their lack of engagement may manifest in a lack of commitment to their role, or an unwillingness to fulfil their responsibilities.

Low engagement hurts

But if the description of a highly engaged employee sounds like a fantasy, it is – at least for most people.

According to Gallup, just 21% of employees globally are engaged in the workplace. Although this figure has risen over the last decade, progress has stalled since the onset of Covid-19, having peaked at 22% in 2019.

This flatlining has a significant and detrimental affect on the global economy. Employees who are not engaged or actively disengaged from work have been estimated to cost the global economy $7.8 trillion – equivalent to 11% of GDP globally.

For individual companies, the consequences are equally significant. Another study by Gallup, in 2020, explored the correlation between engagement at work and 11 organisational outcomes, including customer loyalty, profitability, productivity, turnover, safety incidents and absenteeism. It found a substantial correlation across all outcomes.

Among the findings were a 23% increase in productivity for companies with high engagement, compared with those with low engagement. Meanwhile, high engagement saw absenteeism drop by 81% and workplace accidents fall by 66%.

With engagement levels stalling, more and more employers can expect to see their performance decline.

Improving engagement levels

Low engagement is a problem, but it isn’t without remedy. Employers hoping to engage these employees must deliver a working experience tailored to those employees’ needs – either in relation to the work an employee undertakes directly, or to the broader characteristics of the workplace.

Increasingly, this means a multi-generational workforce, soon dominated by millennials and so-called ‘Gen Z’. Unlike their predecessors, these cohorts are more heavily affected by the cost-of-living crisis and are making flexibility and remote work an increasing priority.

They also place greater emphasis on ethical and environmental considerations. Pay remains important, but will be weighed against other factors, such as how well a company aligns with their individual values.

But each workplace is different. To gain a true understanding of how best to engage their employees, employers must first be confident in knowing who their employees are.

Employee data is a useful tool here in shaping and delivering initiatives to maximise employee engagement.

Actions to drive engagement may include:

Giving employees clear and achievable goals as part of their daily work, providing encouragement and visualising progress
Offering mentoring or peer-to-peer learning
Encouraging continuous learning and other forms of personal development, including outside of the workplace
Ensuring employees receive praise and recognition for demonstrating good work and commitment
Facilitating flexible working where possible, including providing employees with tools and equipment to carry out remote work
Organising events and activities to develop bonds and build rapport within the workplace
Encouraging leaders to establish meaningful connections with employees, such as by taking an interest in their lives, listening to their opinions and balancing professionalism with friendliness
Demonstrating a strong understanding of mental wellbeing, including providing employees with appropriate forums for discussing issues and sharing emotions and vulnerabilities
Being committed to equality, diversity and inclusion, including fair pay
Ensuring opportunities for internal career progression exist and are accessible to all employees