When we went back 20 years or so, we were not aware of how much the feelings and thoughts of the employees affect the work. There were organisations that were aware, of course, and they are now among the biggest organisations in the world. Why? Because their focus on employee emotions and thoughts gave them a serious competitive advantage.
For the last 20 years, we have been focusing on the emotions of employees with an increasing pace. The pandemic has maximized the importance given to these feelings and thoughts.
Management teams, including HR, now pay more attention to how engaged employees are to their work, what fears they carry, the troubles they experience and their suggestions.
Otherwise, they risk learning during exit interviews or surveys that their talented employees have already disengaged from the company.
The latest Gallup survey is full of interesting findings about global employee engagement and employee expectations. When we take a bird’s eye view of the research, we see that the global employee engagement rate was 23 per cent, that is, it increased by 1 point compared to 2021. This rate is also the highest rate since 2009. It is pleasing that employee engagement has increased by one point, but one of the most crucial outputs of the research is the historical increase in employee stress rates.
The concepts of global employee engagement and global employee stress are the aspects of this report that need to be discussed.
If engagement is increasing, why is stress increasing?
The 23 per cent rate shown by the report shows that employee engagement increased by 1 point compared to the previous year. Think of this rate as 25 per cent. In other words, only 1 out of 4 employees should feel engaged to their work and workplace. Is that enough? No, it is not. Gallup data reveals progress, but there is no good news.
Let’s underline these two points:
Being engaged does not mean being happy.
In proportion to the degree of engagement, highly engaged employees may care more about the company, their managers and the work they do, participate more actively, take more responsibility, and this may cause stress.
According to Gallup, stress is directly related to physical and mental health problems and low productivity. Increased employee stress puts organisations’ future engagement rates at risk and is a problem that needs to be addressed quickly.
What do the findings say?
- More than half of employees (59%) are quiet quitting (not engaged), and 18% are loud quitting (actively disengaged). Quiet quitting employees cite issues related to employee engagement or culture, pay and benefits, or wellbeing as areas they would change about their workplace to make it better.
- More than half (51%) of global employees working for an employer are actively looking for another job or watching for openings. Actively disengaged employees are 42% more likely to be actively looking or watching for openings in comparison to engaged employees.
- While exclusively remote and hybrid employees report higher employee engagement, they also report higher stress — perhaps caused by a less predictable or structured work life. But employee engagement has 3.8 times as much influence on employee stress as work location. In other words, what people are experiencing in their everyday work — their feelings of involvement and enthusiasm — matters more in reducing stress than where they are doing their work. No location can fix poor management.
- Gallup has found that effective management in the more remote and hybrid, post-pandemic workforce involves having one meaningful conversation with each employee once per week that focuses on recognition, collaboration, goals and priorities, and strengths. These feedback meetings can be short (15-30 minutes) if they happen weekly.
What is Moodivation’s response to these results?
The responses of over 2 million employees, a representative sample of the world’s workforce, reveal that decision-makers need to take action promptly (if they haven’t yet). According to the research findings, the global cost of disengaged workers is $8.8 trillion. It is roughly 9 per cent of global income.
A fast analysis process is required for the actions to be taken. The solutions we offer with Moodivation technology cover these analyses in detail. Our surveys, which analyse many topics in detail, starting from employee engagement to exit surveys, enable you to see problems before they grow, support the construction of a feedback culture, and protect decision-makers from surprises.