Employee engagement has held pretty steady in the last year, which means company efforts to improve engagement hasn’t had much impact so far. But we’ve also learned more about what employees want from their work and how to help them get it. Now we need to use this knowledge to make a difference. Perhaps we’ll have a better picture of employee engagement next year.
Take a look at this infographic for a picture of where we stand today. (Click here for full size version.)
Percentage of engaged employees
The Temkin Group’s Employee Engagement Benchmark Study 2017 finds 33% of employees at U.S. companies are highly engaged and 30% are moderately engaged. Aon’s Global Employee Engagement Report pegs the worldwide number bit lower, 24% highly engaged and 39% moderately engage. Gallup reports similar number with 33% in the U.S. engaged and 15% worldwide. Gallup does not break out highly and moderately engaged employees.
People looking to leave their jobs
The ultimate move for disengaged employees is to jump companies, hoping to find a better situation elsewhere. According to a Gallup survey reported on Access Perks blog, 51% of workers and looking to leave. That’s a pretty huge number if you consider how hard that kind of exodus would impact your business.
Luckily, most companies aren’t losing that many employees. According to a large employer survey by Compensation Force, an average of 12.8% of employees leave voluntarily each year and 17.8% leave in total. Compensation Force tracks this statistic each year, and the numbers of people voluntarily leaving their jobs has steadily increased the last several years. That’s a reflection of the tightening job market and a sign of how important employee engagement will be to keeping your best people.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics pegs the median job tenure at 4.2 years across all industries. That’s also been shrinking over the last few years.
Why they’re leaving
There are complex reasons behind a job move, but burnout, poor training, and lack of fulfillment play a big role.
According to a survey by Workplace Trends, 46% of HR leaders say between 20 and 50% of people who leave their companies do so because of burnout. Another survey, reported in Go2HR, found that 40% of employees who get little or no job training leave within the first year. These people point to poor skills training as a major factor in their decision to leave.
On the other hand, Cone Communications‘ 2016 employee engagement study found that 74% of people find their jobs more fulfilling if they have opportunities to make a positive impact at work. A Mercer survey found that 78% of employees would stay with their current employer if they knew they had a career path rather than just a job.
And a study reported in Benefit News revealed that 70% of employees believe motivation and morale would greatly improve if managers would just say “thank you” more often. The same study found that most managers think they already say “thank you” enough. So if you’re thinking that right now, maybe it’s time to start over-thanking your team and see what happens.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Noun Project and Creative Commons for our icon graphics: exit by Marc Andre Roy, fire by Aron K. Kim, stairs by Emir Palavan, trophy by Oksana Latysheva, person by Adrien Coquet.