Employee engagement, in its simplest definition, is people’s willingness to participate in their work. The common goal of all efforts to increase employee engagement is to create a reason for this willing participation or to show the existing reasons to the employees. Because sometimes the purpose that the company thinks is shared with employees is invisible due to poor communication or inadequate leadership.
In our previous articles, we shared why employee engagement and real-time measurement are important. Now, we would like to share the 4 numerical results that high employee engagement affects at the highest level.
81% lower absenteeism
We don’t need research to understand the difference between a person going to work eagerly and not wanting to get out of bed. But thanks to the researches, we can see the frequency and magnitude of this problem. Employees who are not engaged are more likely to be absent compared to those who are happy and motivated in their roles. Beyond using annual leave fully to the last bit, frequent excuse leave, even frequent illness, should have a meaning for decision makers. Because being emotionally detached from work can cause many physical and mental disorders. According to Gallup research, high employee engagement reduces the absenteeism rate in companies by 81 percent.
66% “better feeling” rate
One of the most important reasons that require real-time analysis of employee engagement, just like financial reports, is to be aware of employees’ feelings such as anxiety, stress, sadness, and anger. Employees with low levels of engagement were found to have 61 percent more burnout, 48 percent higher daily stress, 66 percent higher anxiety, and nearly twice as likely to experience sadness and anger. In connection with these results, it was revealed that employees with a high level of engagement felt better by 66 percent. More importantly, employees who feel better also pass on positive emotions to other employees and contribute to a positive corporate atmosphere.
64% fewer occupational accidents
The most important feature of engaged employees is that they feel they are part of company’s success and invest in their work for this success. This investment of employees brings not only results such as happy customers or high productivity; it is also related to a much more vital issue: occupational health and safety. For the disengaged employee, security briefings are “long and boring”, checks are “unnecessary”, and 100% security of teammates is “the responsibility of the company”! They break rules, produce shortcuts, and are disconnected from the team. The 64 percent lower rate of occupational accidents that come with high employee engagement is not surprising when viewed from this point of view. Let’s remember that occupational accidents are not limited to the manufacturing sector alone. There are different occupational health and safety risks in every line of work and business environment.
41% higher quality
Regardless of your field of activity, whether you offer products or services, you should have a quality control mechanism. Employee engagement is considered to be one of the most important indicators in measuring job satisfaction. We cannot ignore that the sense of belonging and commitment is one of the key points of organizational performance and the total quality of business processes also depends on these feelings. Regardless of the field in which we do business, every investment we make in employee engagement is an investment in the quality of our work.
If you are a chain of cafeterias, even the temperature of the coffee you serve to customers is affected by this feeling. Let’s imagine that you don’t have a business that is done “human to human”, let’s even say it is “unmanned”, with some exaggeration. You have built a vending machine and the service you provide consists of the operation of the machine. Even at that point, you have critical human responsibilities such as product filling, maintenance and cleaning. Because if a vending machine doesn’t work automatically, it isn’t even a vending machine.
Shall we recall employee engagement rates around the world? Gallup, the global expert on the subject, announced the rate of engaged employees at the global level as 20 percent in its 2021 assessment. In 2019, this rate was 22 percent. Two years under the influence of the pandemic stopped engagement rates from advancing and caused them to decrease by 2 percentage points.
The remaining 80 percent of employees are either not engaged in their work or are actively seeking work. This lack of engagement costs the global economy USD 8.1 trillion each year, about 10% of GDP, as a loss of productivity.
In short, an army of 80 percent employees;
– Doesn’t care if the coffee is hot.
– Doesn’t answer the phone with a smile.
– Doesn’t return to the customer on time.
– Doesn’t make the final control of the product that he/she sent.
– Doesn’t make sure if the right product is in the right package.
– Causes chain errors in financial statements.
– Prepares invoices incorrectly; receives under/over payments.
– Gets prepared to submit his/her resignation at the most difficult time.
– Won’t budge on the team’s success.
What do you think about that?
What do you see when you look at the organizational statistics?